PRACTICAL 

POTATO CULTURE 



BY 
E. A. ROGERS 



PRICE FIFTY CENTS 




Practical 
Potato 
Culture 

By ^ 
E. A. Rogers 

Brunswick 

Maine 



MR. E A. ROGERS 







PEMHSYLVANfA 

DEPABTMENTOr AGRICULTURE. 

HARAISBURG 









Jmaxiarj 29,191S 

ilr. J. B. Hainaa, 
Ballsy Building;, 

Philadelphia, Pa. 

My dear Slrs- 

1 understand that you are about to publish a book oa Potato Oulture by 
B. A. Rogers of Maine. 

Mr. Rogers prepared a bulletin for this Department on Potato Culture , whloh 
was published in 1910, which was very satisfactory to this Department and proved 
to be of great value to the potato growers of this State. 

I shall look with anxiety for the appearance of your publication shlch I feel 
sure will be well received by potato growers throughout the country. 

Sery truly yours. 




Secretary ct AgriculXwre 



Introduction 



^"^p^^ 



To the readers of this treatise on the potato I have but 
to state that I receive so many inquiries each year as to our 
Maine methods of growing this crop that it is impossible 
for me to answer and give the information asked for in 
a letter. Two years ago I was asked by the Secretary of 
Agriculture of the State of Pennsylvania to prepare a bul- 
letin on the potato. This I did, and it was issued as bulletin 
No. 190 of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, 
Harrisburg, Pa. I only had a few weeks in which to pre- 
pare this work and was unable in the short time at my dis- 
posal to make the work as complete as it should have been. 
Nevertheless, it was considered of value enough so that a 
year later the great Pennsylvania Railroad reissued it in an 
abridged form for distribution to the farmers along its 
lines, and up to November, 1911, had been obliged to print 
the third edition to supply the demand for it. 

In December, 1911, the manager of the New England 
Industral Bureau of the N. Y., N. H. & H., the Boston & 
Maine and the Maine Central R. R. wrote, asking the au- 
thor's permission to publish the original bulletin for dis- 
tribution throughout New England. 

This permission was readily given, for while the orig- 
inal bulletin was not as complete as desired, I felt that it 
might be of value to many. Nevertheless, I have no doubt 
but what it will increase the number of letters asking for 
information that come to me. 

In order that I can fully answer these personal in- 
quiries, I have revised and rewritten those parts of the 
original bulletin which I considered incomplete. I also 
have added a few more pages on the home garden and 
its protection from insects, which is growing to be of more 
and more importance to us each year as the cost of living 
increases. 

I am not going to attempt to say that all the methods as 
laid down in the following pages relative to growing pota- 
toes in Maine will be equally as productive in every state. 

The principles of soil preparation and the use of com- 
mercial fertilizers must be the same in one state as another. 
So will the keeping and preparation of seed, the fighting of 

■^'01.^^43407 



all insects without the injury to the vines, as is now so often 
done, be the same, whether in Maine or Colorado. The 
methods of cultivating may differ somewhat, depending on 
the amount of rainfall in different states, but even this is a 
mooted question. I have simply put down facts as they 
apply to Maine's conditions, with as great a variety of soil 
as will be found in any state. 

They have proved sound for Pennsylvania condi- 
tions and will, I believe, prove equally as valuable for 
Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin or any other of our 
two Northern tiers of states. I ask my readers to re- 
member as they peruse these pages that they are the work 
of an everyday farmer, and one of the objects in writing 
this book is to save the author's time in the busy seztson 
answering questions by letter to those who desire to learn 
how it is that Maine leads every other large potato grow- 
ing state in yield per acre. Theory is not fact, and while 
theory helps the scientist on his way to work out many 
problems, it will not feed the nation; that is done by you 
and I, the hard-working farmers of this broad Isuid. 

To make many phases of the work more clear anrl 
understandable to my readers I have used as far as pos- 
sible photographs of the different farm implements, each 
doing some portion of the work which it was designed 
to do. 

I have taken as far as possible those makes of imple- 
ments which will do the work shown by the photograph in 
the best possible manner, and to help out my readers who 
desire to purchase implements of this kind I have given 
the name of the manufacturers, who are in every case 
honest, reliable firms. I have no interest whatever in the 
manufacture of any of these implements, with the excep- 
tion of the dry dusting machines, but give the information 
wholly for the benefit of my readers and a desire to make 
this work of the greatest possible value to them. 

Yours truly, 

E. A. ROGERS. 
Sec'y Johnson Seed Potato Co., Brunswick, Me. 

General Offices, Leominster, Mass. 

GENERAL CONDITIONS 

The great bidk of the potatoes consumed in the 
United States during the late fall and winter months 



4 

probably will be grown for a generation at least in the 
northern tier of states, as they are today. There are sec- 
tions in most of these states where enormous quantities 
could be grown with profit where but few are produced 
today. As the population of the country increases, there 
will be an ever increasing demand for the potato, for 
there is no vegetable grown so generally used by all 
classes. 

There is also a Vv^ide demand for better quality than 
is now raised in many sections, and a more intelligent 
system of getting them to the consumers' table, with 
the natural quality unimpaired, than is now the case. 

The culture of this important crop has not received 
the attention in certain localities that it deserves, for 
there are but few crops grown that will so quickly r€- 
spond to intelligent care and culture as will the potato. 
The value of the crop per acre ranks with the highest in 
those sections where the crop is studied and modern 
methods and machinery are used. That this can be made 
to be true in many other localities where at present the 
culture is limited, or if followed in the old way produces 
but little or no profit to the grower, few who are familiar 
with the subject will deny. 

The following statistics obtained from the United 
States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Statistics, 
for the year 1908, are here given, showing the relative 
standing of the seven leading potato states of the coun- 
try, both as to acreage and yield per acre. For con- 
venience of comparison, I give them in order of the 
largest acreage first: 

State. Acreage. Average Yield- 

Per Acre. 
New York 425,000. 82 bushels 

Michigan 325,000 72 bushels- 

Pennsylvania 277.000 72 bushels' 

Wisconsin 252,000 80 bushels 

Ohio 170,000 77 bushels 

Minnesota 145.000 70 bushels 

Maine 116,000 225 bushels 

By this table it will be seen that while Maine comes 
seventh on the list in number of acres planted, she is 
second in point of yield, the average per acre being over 
three times as great in Maine as in Michigan and Penn- 
sylvania, and practically three times as large as in Min- 



neso'ta, Ohio and Wisconsin and 23-4 as large as in New 
York. 

Maine, with her 116,000 acres planted, harvested 
a crop of 26,100,000 bushels, while Pennsylvania, with an 
acreage planted of 277,000 acres, only harvested 19,944,- 
000 bushels; or, with 161,000 more acres planted, she 
did not harvest as mauiy potatoes by over six million 
bushels. Michigan had over two and three quarters times 
as many acres planted as did Maine, zmd harvested less by 
2,700,000 bushels. That this is wholly or largely the re- 
sult of better climatic and soil conditions in Msune, I do 
not believe. The conditions in Maine, one year with 
another, may be, and probably are, more favorable than 
they rule in Pennsylvania or Michigan. I do not, how- 
ever, believe that this is true of New York. From a thor- 
ough knowledge of Maine conditions, I have been able to 
compare them with the conditions I have found in my 
travels throughout New York, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, 
Pennsylvania and several other states, and it is my firni 
belief that the attention given the culture, with protection 
against insects and blight, along with a crop rotation suited 
to the potato itself, has more to do with the great differ- 
ence in yield found between Maine and those other states 
than more soil and climatic conditions. 

In this view, I believe I am supported by the yield 
gotten by individuals in practically all the above-named 
states, who have given the potato conditions suitable 
for its best development, which any farmer can do in 
any state named, who has gotten yields from 300 to 
500 bushels per acre. . 

If such yields as the above can be gotten in indi- 
vidual cases by proper fitting of the soil and fertilization, 
there can be no question but what the same effort put' 
forth by the potato growers of any state would increase 
the yield per acre nearly, if not quite, up to that of 
Maine. 

ROTATION 

. The potato grower should have a certain fixed sys- 
tem of crop rotation in order to get the best results. 
No haphazard method will pay in a series of years, and 
this rotation will have to be varied to 'suit the different 
localities. In the southern sections, where winter wheat 



is grown, a different system will be luund necessary than 
in northern and mountainous regions. The Maine potato 
grower usually has either a three or four year rotation. 

First, potatoes on broken sod. Second, grain, usually 
oats or spring wheat, which is sown as early as the 
ground is in condition to be properly worked, grass and 
clover being sown along with the oats or wheat. Third 
and fourth years, hay, unless a three-year rotation is 
practiced, when hay will only be cut the third year, plow- 
ing under the second crop of clover for potatoes. This 
is sometimes varied by planting corn the second year, 
seeding to grass and clover at the last working of the 
corn, which in Maine usually comes in the first ten days 
of July. As fine a stand of grass and clover is usually 
obtained by seeding in this manner as it is possible to 
obtain with any system of seeding with small grains. 
There is one disadvantage, in that the first year's hay 
will contain more or less corn stubble ; this is of no con- 
sequence if the ha}^ can be fed on the farm and is not 
intended for sale. 

This following of potatoes with corn allows an ap- 
plication of barn dressing to be applied to land that is in 
the potato rotation, with but little if any injury to the 
potato crop, as it will be so far used up by the corn and 
hay crops before potatoes will again come into the rota- 
tion that the chances of rot or scab from this cause are 
slight. 

The application of barn manure will greatly help 
both corn and the newly seeded grass and clover. If oats 
were to be sown, it would not do to apply this barn 
dressing, as it is almost sure to result in lodged grain, 
which means a killing out of the clover in the lodged 
portions of the field, and a failure of the grain to fill. 
This rotation should do as well for other states as it 
does for Maine, but in the southern sections, where corn 
is planted on sod, followed the second year with pota- 
toes, crimson clover, winter vetch, or some other humus- 
supplying crop should be sown in the corn, if large crops 
of potatoes are to be expected. No farmer who follows 
a system of rotation which places the potato second can 
hope to get maximum crops. 



SOILS FOR POTATOES 

The potato must have well-drained soil; no amount 
of care in selecting seed and cultivation or surface drain- 
age after planting will avail, the potato will not produce 
a paying crop of nice, marketable tubers in a soil filled 
with stagnant water. The deep sandy or gravelly loams 
are without question the best. Not only will the potato, as 
a rule, grow better in this kind of soil, but they are more 
easily worked. The successful potato grower knows that 
it is largely a question of doing the work at just the proper 
time, and a deep sandy or gravelly loam can be worked 
sooner after rains, and little delay will be caused in the 
work by our short summer rains on this kind of land. Clay 
loam, if not too heavy, will produce just as many bushels 
per acre as will the lighter soils and of just as good qual- 
ity, provided the soil is well drained; the disadvantage of 
the heavier soils is in the working of them in wet weather, 
which may delay planting in spring, and prevent cultiva- 
tion to such an extent that the weeds may get a start, not 
to be overcome with any system of cultivation, except 
hand-work, which is too costly and slow to be consid- 
ered in these days of high-priced labor. Some of the 
largest yields I have ever seen, running from five to six 
hundred bushels per acre, and of the very finest quality, 
were grown on clay loam soil, and a farmer having such 
a soil need not despair of entering potato growing in com- 
petition with his more favored neighbors, who may have 
an easily worked sandy or gravelly loam. 

UNDERDRAINAGE 

The value of underdrainage to land intended for 
potatoes cannot be overestimated. In many cases the 
whole cost of putting in a system of tile underdrain will 
be mo^e than paid back by the increase in the first year's 
crop. In fact, if there were any places in the field where 
water was wont to stand after rains, this is most sure to 
be the case. When we consider that a properly laid sys- 
tem of tile drain will last for a lifetime or longer, with its 
beneficial effects on all crops every year, it becomes one 
of the most profitable investments any farmer can make. 
The farmer will understand that this applies especially 
to those fields which are springy or with depressions in 
them where the water stands after rain. Such places 







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will not produce a paying crop of potatoes, no matter 
how much care is given in the way of fertilization, cul- 
tivation and spraying, until the surplus water from those 
places is removed by underdrains. The increase in the 
crop from these underdrained wet places is only a part 
of the value of this work to the potato grower, as a wet, 
springy place or depression where the water may collect 
after a rain will so reduce the vigor of the crop, if not 
killing it outright in these places, that blight will very 
often start ; spreading from these to the higher portions 
of the field, with the result that the whole field will be 
ruined when, but from these sources of infection, it 
would have escaped. 

An undrained sag in a potato field is a menace to the 
whole field, for it is a breeding place for the late blight 
or rot, and furthermore, even in a dry season, when pota- 
toes can grow in such a place, they are seldom fit for 
market, being rough and ill shapen and of poor quality. 

PREPARING LAND FOR POTATOES 

In taking up the preparation of land for white potatoes 
I shall have to divide it into several sections in order to suit 
each kind of soil and to properly describe how to work up 
the vegetable matter that grows on each. 

To the average grower the preparation of a potato 
field is of more importance than the kind of soil, always 
provided it is well drained. I believe we have very little 
workable land which cannot by intelligent methods be made 
to produce a paying crop of potatoes. Land which is too 
wet needs drainage ; land which is naturally too dry can, by 
supplying it with plenty of humus or vegetable matter, be 
made to hold plenty of moisture to produce a paying crop. 

With the potato, I believe, more than with any other 
crop does success depend on the man than on the soil itself. 
Potatoes need a large amount of available moisture, not 
stagnant water which excludes the air, but moisture in such 
a way that air can circulate freely through the few inches 
of the top soil and the more vegetable matter or humus, the 
more moisture it can hold and stiU have this air circulation. 
There is no crop I know of that will so rapidly use up 
vegetable matter from the soil as will the potato, and the 
more humus the soil contains the greater will be the re- 
sultant yield ; and the lack of humus or vegetable matter 



10 

in our soil is, I believe, one of the greatest drawbacks the 
potato grower has to contend with today. 

For this reason, in the chapters that follow, I shall 
treat fully of the different methods by which the grower 
can obtain this vegetable matter with the least possible 
expense of time and labor. Again, after the grower obtains 
this, it is equally as important, if the very best results are 
to be obtained in crop production, that it be properly in- 
corporated into the soil. 

The system of planting corn on sod, following the next 
year with potatoes, deprives the potato of the vegetable 
matter it so badly needs, and in many cases reduces the 
yield of tubers below a paying basis, and one of the greatest 
problems of the potato grower is how at the minimum cost 
to supply this vegetable matter. 

In those sections w'here crimson clover can be sown 
at the last working of the corn with a fair prospect of get- 
ting a good growth, it will be found to be of benefit, but 
in the more northern sections and mountainous portions, 
where corn is not so much grown, the same system of cul- 
ture and rotation that is practiced in Maine can be followed 
successfully with some slight variations. 

On an old meadow which has been down to grass for 
several years and covered with a heavy sod, there will be 
found to be vegetable matter enough in the sod to produce 
a large crop of tubers if a liberal application of chemicals 
or ready mixed commercial fertilizer is used. 

Having such a sod, the next thing is to so prepare it 
that the potato crop will derive the maximum benefit from 
it. The chapters immediately following will give some of 
the best known methods. 

Subduing a New England Witch-Grass Sod 

This is known locally also as quack, couch, wild rye 
and Johnson grass, and the methods described for fitting 
a sod of this kind for potatoes is equally as good for any 
other kind of grass, but usually the work does not have to 
be so thoroughly done, therefore is not so expensive. Land 
with a tough w^tch-grass-bound sod, such as is found in 
New England, must have a dift'erent and longer prepara- 
tion before it can be planted to potatoes than any that is 
usually found in most other sections of our country. 

Again, the more northern sections can and should use 



11 

a different method than would give the best results farther 
south. 

While witch-grass is not confined wholly to the New 
England states, there is practically no farmer there but 
what knows what it is, with its long white roots with a 
very sharp point which will grow right through a good 
sized tuber. It starts its growth early in the spring and if 
the roots are cut or broken will send up new stalks from 
every root joint. Probably it has driven more New Eng- 
land boys from the farms than any one thing, and where 
allowed to get a good start in a potato field makes it im- 
possible to dig such a field with any digger yet made with 
any degree of success. Witch-grass is one of the greatest 
curses to New England agriculture and one of the greatest 
blessings also (when you have gotten rid of it), for one 
having a good sod of this kind is sure of raising fine pota- 
toes if he will simply kill it out and make plant food of it. 
Potatoes will grow smoother upon it than they will on a 
clover sod and be of the finest quality. 

To subdue a field of this kind the work must be begun 
the year previous to planting potatoes, and if the land is 
in grass this should be cut just as the witch-grass begins 
to blossom, as the roots then seem to be at their most ex- 
hausted period. As soon as the hay is gathered in, work 
should be commenced to kill out the grass, and on land 
free from stone a double cutaway harrow is a fine imple- 
ment. In using this method the ground should not be 
plowed until the sod has been entirely killed out by har- 
rowing. 

The disks should be ground sharp and the harrow 
weighted, and if three or four horses can be spared for the 
harrow the more quickly and thoroughly can the work be 
done. The field should be gone over both lengthways and 
crosswise, cutting us as deeply as the harrow will do the 
work. The field should be gone over at least once a week 
with the harrow for the first few weeks and then as often 
as any of the roots show any signs of sprouting, even as 
late as October. I have at this stage sown winter rye and 
plowed down in the spring, but there is most sure to be some 
of the witch-grass roots which would not be quite dead and 
would make growth after the rye was sown, springing into 
vigorous life after the rye was plowed down in the spring. 
Thus, one wanting to make a sure kill of the grass had bet- 
ter leave the rve out even if there is some loss of nitrates 



12 

by leaching during the winter. There will be such a mass 
of dead vegetable matter that the soil is not exposed to 
winter leaching like plowed land, which will make humus, 
pulverized and mixed all through the top, five or six inches 
of soil. As soon as the soil can be worked in the spring 
start the harrow again going, both crosswise and length- 
ways, as before. If the work has been done thoroughly 
there should not be a live root on the field, but there will 
be an immense amount of dead vegetable matter. 

Photo No. 3 shows a double-action cutaway harrow 
made by the Cutaway Harrow Co., Higganum, Conn., cut- 
ting up and pulverizing a heavy timothy red top and witch- 
grass sod in early September, 1912, for a crop of potatoes in 
1913 on the author's home farm, Mere Point Brunswick, 
Maine. The reader will note the mass of vegetable matter 
that has already been w'orked up. This in itself is a good 
protection against winter leaching. 

The field is now ready to be plowed, and this should be 
done deeply, not less than eight, and ten inches is much 
better for potatoes, turning down this top soil with its mass 
of vegetable matter into the bottom of the furrow. 

Go over the field both ways again with the double 
cutaway, followed by the smoothing harrow, and we have 
the whole depth plowed a finely pulverized seed bed with 
the witch-grass sod entirely killed and in the best possible 
place and condition to make the potato crop grow. It will 
now act as storage for moisture and not prevent the sub- 
soil moisture from coming to the surface by capillary at- 
traction, as would have been the case had it been plowed 
down without being first cut up and mixed with the soil. 

No harm will be done on land worked in this manner 
by plowing as deep as mentioned above, even if an inch 
or two of the hard subsoil has been turned on top. We 
have got to have a few inches of the soil that is on top for 
our dust mulch, and this subsoil we have turned up will do 
nearly as well as any and gives the potato crop all the nice 
soil to grow in. 

The cost of w'orking a witch-grass sod in this way is 
about ten dollars per acre, previous to plowing. The work 
after plowing is less, as less discing is needed to make a 
perfect seed bed. The yield per acre is very much more, 
as the intense cultivation required to kill the grass roots 
makes the soil more productive, and the reduction in the 
cost of handling the crop after planting more than offsets 



14 

the cost of the work to kiU the grass. 

Hsmdling a Northern Timothy, Red Top and Clover Sod 

In describing the working up of a witch-grass sod the 
everyday fanner will know that the witch-grass seldom 
grows entirely alone, but has mixed with it timothy and 
usually some red top, and at times some clover, although 
the clover stands but little show when the witch-grass is 
thick or has had time to form a heavy sod. Hence, any 
land that has the witch-grass in it should be worked as de- 
scribed in the previous chapter. 

A good timothy and red top sod can be as thick on the 
ground as the quack, but is not usually as deep, and as 
this can be readily killed out, the harrow need not be started 
until spring, when the work can be thoroughly done unless 
the land is intended for very early potatoes, wjien it is 
better to cut it up late the fall previous. No man who has 
not thoroughly tried this cutting up of the sod with a good 
cutaway harrow previous to plowing can begin to realize 
the benefit it is to the crop, the mixing of this decaying turf 
all through the soil and then plowing down works favorable 
to the crop in many ways. 

The old method in Maine was to break the sod late h\ 
the fall. This, if followed by a dry season, was much bet- 
ter than turning it down just before planting in the spring. 

None of our general field crops need as deep plow- 
ing to do their best as does the potato; to break and turn 
down a sod in the fall and plow the land as deeply as the 
potato needs to do its best in is to put all that vegetable 
matter too deep into the soil for the best results. No har- 
row can be worked deep enough to touch it, amd the re- 
sult is that only a few inches of the top soil gets worked 
with the harrow at all, leaving this blanket of turf to re- 
tard the subsoil moisture from coming near enough to 
the surface to benefit the growing potatoes as it should 
and further denying them of the plant food the sod con- 
tains, which they could have used had the sod been prop- 
erly worked up previous to plowing. 

However, it is much better if a sod is not going to be 
cut up with a harrow to plow it down the fall previous to 
planting, then to wait until spring, especially if followed by 
a dry season. Land broken in the fall gets settled down 
together and decay sets in from the rains of winter and 
spring, so that there is much better capillary connection 



15 



through the turf than if the same field was spring plowed, 
and while it cannot be harrowed as deeply as it should be 
to get the best results in crop production, the same would 
hold true if it were spring plowed. In turning down a 
heavy sod in the spring without first cutting it up and mix- 
ing it with the first five or six inches of soil, we are deny- 
ing the crop to be planted, whether potatoes or anything 
else, not only of the greater part of the plant food the sod 
contains, but we are putting it in the worst possible place 
and condition to retard that crop's development, for with 
dry weather coming on the sod will not decay, and until it 
does none of the subsoil moisture can get near enough to 
the surface to be of any use in dissolving plant food for 
the crop to drink up. 

This working will apply equally as well to any clover 
field, either crimson or northern, wherever grown, South 
or North. It is a decided advantage in sprouting and kill- 
ing millions of w^eed seeds before the crop is planted. 

Subsoiling 
We see but little of late years about subsoiling, and 
there seems to be a sort of fad to plow very shallow for 
most every crop. 

This is a better system for corn and the small grains 
than for the potato. The deeper soil can be worked for 
potatoes the better, if it is done right. There is always a 
right and wrong way to do most any kind of farm work. 
Subsoiling, if done when and as it should be, will greatly 
increase the yield of potatoes, enlarge the water holding 
capacity of the soil and improve the crop of grain and hay 
which follow. 

Let a farmer take a field where the soil is somewhat 
thin, and which he had been plowing for years from five 
to not over seven inches, and put on a heavy team with a 
big plow, and plow twelve, turning up from four to fi\e 
inches of hard subsoil with all of his good soil underneath 
and there could be but one result, and that a bad one. Yet 
that subsoil contains elements of plant food in much more 
abundance than the top soil which he has turned down, but 
it is to a very great extent deficient in humus or vegetable 
matter, and it will make but little difference to most crops 
how much potash and phosphoric acid it may contain, it is 
unpalatable to them, and they will not thrive upon it until 
in course of time it becomes filled with decaying vegetal)lc 
matter. 



16 

On some farms, cultivated as they are, this might take 
years. 

Therefore, unless a farmer clearly knows what he 
wants and just how to go about it, he had better let sub- 
soiling alone. 

Dig a well, twenty feet or more deep, in my section 
of Maine, and take the clear blue clay from the very bot- 
tom of it and spread it on the ground and clover will come 
up and grow finely upon it, but not many other plants 
would. I have pulverized clear blue clay to the depth of 
two feet and planted potatoes in it and they have done 
finely, and no smoother, finer tubers were ever taken from 
the ground than these out of this clear blue clay. 

I cite these cases simply to call attention to the possi- 
bilities that lie in our soil below what the common farmer 
is cultivating. 

When the potato grower has worked up his sod as 
I have described under "Subduing a New England Witch- 
grass Sod/' and starts his plow at the depth I have named, 
if he will follow with another team with a good subsoil 
plow, running it as deep as he can, the deeper, the better, 
but not turning this up on top of the other soil, simply 
hreaJking it up and loosening it in the bottom of the furrow, 
he will find that not only will his potatoes pay him a big 
price for the work done by an increased yield, but the 
other crops that follow will for years do the same. By 
doing this in this way he has greatly enWged the soil's 
water holding capacity, which in a dry season may for this 
reason alone make him a good crop of tubers, when with- 
out it his crop would have been a failure. 

Potato roots will penetrate deeper into this in a dry 
season than many will believe. 

When seeded to the grasses and clovers the clover roots 
will fill this full of roots, gradually filling it with humus as 
they_ decay, deepening and making the land more pro- 
ductive as the years go on. 

_ I suppose I have heard hundreds of farmers say that 
their soil was not as deep as it used to be, and almost in- 
variably by inquiry I find that shallow plowing for corn 
and small grains has been the rule. 

I believe that in thousands of cases the growers of 
corn and small grains could, by working their land over as 
above described, planting to potatoes the year they sul)- 



17 

soiled, increase the production of their farms many per 
cent over what they are now getting. SubsoiUng, when 
rightly done, on many soils is a decided benefit. 

HOW TO GET HUMUS 

The control of moisture in land to be planted to 
potatoes is of great importance and cannot be secured 
by drainage alone, as it is largely a matter of the humus- 
content in the soil. One hundred pounds of clean, dry 
sand will take twenty-two pounds of water to saturate 
it ; one hundred pounds of our ordinary clay loam soil, 
perfectly dry, will take fifty-six pounds of water before 
it will become saturated, while one hundred pounds of 
perfectly dry leaf mold soil will take one hundred and 
ninety-six pounds of water to saturate it, or nearly nine 
times as much as it takes to saturate an equal number 
of pounds of sand, and three and one-half as much more 
as it takes to saturate our ordinary clay loam soil. With 
a soil deficient in humus, no amount of cultivation or 
commercial fertilizer in a dry season can make it produce 
a paying crop of potatoes, while a soil filled with humus 
can be made by cultivation to produce a paying crop 
even in a season of practically no rain. A clay loam soil, 
filled with humus, can be worked much quicker after a 
heavy rain than the same soil which is deficient in it, 
and the capacity of the humus-filled soil to hold moisture 
is so much greater, that w^ith intelligent shallow culti- 
vation, a good crop is practically assured. 

The control of moisture is not the only advantage 
of having a soil filled with humus. The rock-formed soils 
of the eastern portion of our country are filled with 
mineral plant food. It has been claimed by leading scien- 
tific men that the top eight inches of our heaviest loams 
contains potash enough to raise maximum crops from 
two to four hundred years, and phosphoric acid from 
one hundred and fifty to three hundred years, but they 
are locked up in an insoluble form ; a wise provision, in- 
deed, to prevent man from leaving the face of nature a 
barren waste. Fill a soil with humus, which is decaying 
organic matter, and the acids formed in this process 
help to break down and set free some of this locked- 
up plant food. The second eight inches contains as much 
or even more mineral plant food than the first. The 



18 



productiveness of our soils depends more largely upon 
their humus-content than upon any other one thing, and 
one of the first objects of the potato grower should be 
to fill his soil with this decaying vegetable matter. 

In studying to replenish the organic content of our 
soils, we should keep in mind those plants which will 
also supply nitrogen, as this is the most costly element 
of plant food we have to buy, and both humus and nitro- 
gen can be supplied to our soils by the legumes. Of 
these, alfalfa stands at the head, but owing to the short 
rotation usually carried out by the potato grower, it is 
but little used. With those who have land enough to 
adopt a five-year rotation for their potato crop, and 
facilities for keeping stock to use up the alfalfa on their 
farms, I know of no crop which will give better returns. 
Alfalfa makes a very large root-growth, which will pene- 
trate deeply, even into a hard clay sub-soil, bringing up 
fertility from below, increasing greatly the water-hold- 
ing capacity of the soil, and at the same time gathering 
and storing the costly nitrogen. None of our clovers 
have the soil-renovating capacity equal to alfalfa, and 
the potato grower, having a three-year-old alfalfa sod 
to plow under, can grow a good crop of potatoes with 
the smallest amount of commercial fertilizer. Alfalfa 
can be grown on most any well-drained soil, and as it 
seems to thrive best when sowed in early August, it can 
follow early potatoes. 

The ground should be thoroughly worked previous 
to sowing the alfalfa to kill out the weed seeds; this, ot 
course, would be the case on land planted to early pota- 
toes, and this is one of the essentials, as the alfalfa plant, 
when young, is easily smothered out by weeds. Taking 
a field which has been worked in this manner and ap- 
plying a liberal amount of lime, not less than one ton 
per acre, well harrowed in with from one to three 
bushels of inoculated soil from a thrifty alfalfa field, 
sowing twenty-five to thirty pounds of the best north- 
ern-grown alfalfa seed about the first week in August, 
there will be no trouble in getting a stand of alfalfa 
which will last three years, giving a large amount of 
hay and putting the soil in the best possible condition 
for the growing of potatoes. 

Next to alfalfa, a heavy clover sod to plow under 
not only furnishes a large amount of vegetable matter, 



19 

but also many dollars' worth of nitrogenous plant food. 
Some authorities claim that a second crop of clover, with 
its root system, leaves in an acre of ground from 150 to 
200 pounds of nitrogen, which, at the price the farmer 
has to pav, of eighteen to twenty cents per pound, would 
amount to from twenty-seven to forty dollars in nitro- 
gen, and the mechanical effect of plowing under this sec- 
ond crop of clover and sod, while not as great as with 
alfalfa, would be worth as much as the nitrogen to the 
potato grower. In many sections clover does not grow 
as well as it formerly did, and owing to this failure, many 
farmers have entirely stopped using it in their rotation, 
which must result in a great loss to the productivity of 
their farms. 

From my experience, there are two main causes for 
this failure of clover to grow, and I think these two will 
prove to be the case in ninety out of every one hundred 
cases, taking the country as a whole. These are, first : The 
lack of lime; clover needs a great deal of lime. Bum 
clover hay and a certain per cent of the ashes will be 
found to be lime, which shows that the plant needs more 
or less in its stock-growth, and unless lime is present in 
the soil, the bacteria, which lives on the clover roots and 
gathers nitrogen from the air for the plant to use, cannot 
live, or at least will not develop to the extent of being of 
much use to the clover crop. Second: If, after applying 
lime, the farmer still finds that his clover refuses to grow, 
he may be very sure that an application of phosphoric 
acid will be the one thing now lacking to give him as 
bountiful crops as he has ever grown in the past. The 
potato grower cannot afford to do without one of these 
two crops, alfalfa or clover. 

WINTER VETCH. 

Next in value to alfalfa and clover as humus pro- 
ducers, I should place winter vetch, especially for the 
northern states. This is sown with winter rye by a good 
many, as the rye will hold the vetch up, it is easier to 
plow under. In my experience, to sow the vetch with 
rye brings the seeding of the vetch too late to get as 
good stand as is to be desired, although many do this 
with good results. In the more northern states, I believe 
July to be the best time to sow winter vetch. Vetch has 



20 

one drawback, while it is one of the very best soil im- 
provers known to agriculture today, unless handled 
rightly it can become a troublesome pest in our fields. 
This is one of the reasons I dislike to sow it with rye, 
as sown as late as the rye will have to be in order for it 
not to make too large growth before winter, it is seldom 
that all the vetch will sprout and grow the first season, 
but will keep coming up for two or three years at least, 
as soil and weather conditions become favorable to i^. 
This will bring more or less of it over into the grain and 
hay crops, and while not so bad to have in the hay, espe- 
cially if the hay is to be fed on the farm, it is unde- 
sirable to have in the grain, from every point of view. 

Again, as vetch ripens more or less of its seeds 
early, it is most sure to reseed itself in the hay field. 

I have one small patch, which was sown to vetch 
alone about September 15, 1909. The weather being 
somewhat dry, the germination was not of the best, and 
it made but little growth that fall, but what was there 
developed finely the next spring, and by early June I had 
all that was possible to turn under with a big breaking- 
up plow. Corn was then planted, and at every cultiva- 
tion a liberal sprinkling of vetch plants was noted com- 
ing from seed which failed to sprout the fall previous. 
The following season, 1911, it was again plowed and 
planted to melons, and a goodly number of plants de- 
veloped after the last working of the melons. Some of 
these developed into the largest, finest vetch plants I 
have ever seen, there being individual specimens by 
October 20th that measured over 8 feet across, forming 
a fine, close mat over the soil ; as fine a winter covering 
as I have even seen. 

None of the plamts were ever allowed to seed, so 
there can be no doubt in this instance but what all came 
from the first sowing of seed in September, 1909. Those 
who follow potatoes after corn can sow the vetch in the 
corn at the last working in July, and unless the season 
should finish very dry, would be almost sure to have it 
all germinate. Sown at this early date, not near the 
amount of seed would be needed per acre as is usually 
called for. The plants would spread out over the ground, 
covering it nicely and make a vigorous and early start 
the following spring, and excepting where very early 
" potatoes were to be planted, would give a large amount 



21 

of highly nitrogenous vegetable matter to plow down, 
and early enough in the season for any except the very 
early potatoes. 

Rightly handled, there need be no trouble of having 
it become a pest, and as it can be successfully grown 
in the northern states, it takes the place in the north 
that crimson clover occupies farther south. A farmer 
having a field he wishes to plant to potatoes, which is 
deficient in vegetable matter, can get a larger amount of 
highly nitrogenous vegetable matter in a shorter time 
with vetch than any other plant I know of, but I would 
advise, in the northern states at least, that it be sown 
in July or August. 

WINTER RYE. ' 

Probably winter rye is one of the most, if not the 
most largely grown crop for plowing under green that 
we have. 

The fact that it can be sown very late in the fall is 
perhaps one reason for this. It needs only to get well 
sprouted to pass through most any winter, and will make 
a good growth even on poor soil. 

The amount of nitrogen it will return to the soil 
is, of course, small, as compared to the clovers, vetch, 
peas or beans, but with it one can greatly increase the 
humus content of the soil, which is one of the first re- 
quirements in building up top-worn or run-out soils. 

With a liberal application of barn dressing, I have 
had it make a growth by early June of over seven feet, 
and this on poor soil. 

A growth of this kind is not to be desired, for while 
it can be plowed down as easily as a shorter growth, 
it is apt to be woody, and does not decay very readily 
in the soil, and in case of dry weather following, it holds 
up the furrows and dries out the soil, to the injury of 
any crop planted or sown immediately following its 
turning under. 

Probably the best stage of growth to plow down is 
when the rye is about twenty inches high, before it com- 
mences to head out. For this reason it can and should 
be sown much thicker when intended for this purpose 
than if desired to ripen for grain. 

Humus is so badly needed in poor, thin soils that 
a whole season had better be given to filling the soil on 



22 

a field ^\•here potatoes are to be planted, if a profitable 
crop is to be expected. 

If some bam dressing can be spared to give the rye 
a good start there will be a large amount ready to plow 
down by the last of May in our Northern states, then Japa- 
nese Millet can be sown, and by August 20th a much 
heavier crop of Millet will be ready to turn down than we 
had of rye. Now, if winter Vetch is sown, there will be a 
heavy crop of this ready the following spring, in ample 
time for a medium, early or late crop of potatoes. By this 
means the soil will be filled with vegetable matter, and a 
part of it at least containing a large portion of nitrogen. 
To be sure, one season's cropping has been entirely given 
up to this vjork, but it means so much larger crops in the 
years to come that one can hardly afford not to do it. 

It is a comparatively easy matter for the thought- 
ful farmer to keep the humus content of his soil up to 
where it will produce good crops after it has once been 
brought up to that desired state, but unless a season is 
taken for this work in the beginning, the average man 
will crop it for years, getting only barely enough to pay 
him for his labor, when it might have been growing him 
immense and paying crops every year. To start with a 
thin soil that will only produce a small crop of rye, and 
turn it down and crop it with potatoes, is to use up 
practically all the vegetable matter we have got with 
the rye, which would not be enough in any case to grow 
a paying crop of potatoes, and the soil would be in prac- 
tically the same condition as at first. As this would be 
the case each year, no great gain towards building up 
the soil to where it could produce maximum crops can 
be accomplished unless one season in the beginning be 
taken for this purpose. 

The potato grower who is using commercial fertilizers 
should remember that he must have a large supply of 
humus in his soil, or he will get but little benefit from the 
use of the fertilizer used, and he, of all men, cannot af- 
ford to neglect adopting a system to replenish this 
moisture-holding, life-giving quality to his soil. 

TWO MAIN CAUSES OF THE DETERIORATION 
OF THE POTATO 

Within the memory of living men, all one had to do 



23 

to raise an abuiulance of potatoes, was to plant them; 
it did not much matter how, as long as the seed was 
covered by soil. Methods of culture, which at that time 
produced a large crop of tubers, if followed today, would 
hardly pay for the seed planted. The vigor of the pota- 
to in those days enabled it not only to produce an 
abundant crop of tubers, but to produce its true seed 
under the worst cultural methods. The date of the de- 
cline of this vigor was the arrival east of the Colorado 
Potato Beetle. The injury done by this insect in stripping 
the vines of their leaves was one of the prime causes of 
this loss of vigor; another, and far greater cause, was the 
use of Paris green to kill the beetle and their larvae. These 
two causes, one destroying the foliage of the plant entire- 
ly and the other poisoning the life of the plzmt by the ab- 
sorbing of arsenic, acting year after year on practically 
the whole potato crop of the eastern part of the country, 
did an incalculable damage to the vigor of the potato. So 
much has the old-time vigor been impaired, that there 
are but few of the younger generation of farmers who 
have ever seen a potato boll, the true seed of the plant, 
the plants not possessing vitality enough to produce a 
good crop of tubers and the seed boll also. See photo 
No. 2. 

That the habit of producing seed bolls is more pro- 
nounced in some varieties than in others no one who is 
familiar with the subject will deny. There are some va- 
rieties which possess great vigor, but little in the line 
of producing tubers, especially of good quality, that grow 
the seed bolls even under the vigor-destroying condi- 
tions I have named, yet these are of little use to the 
grower. On the other hand, many of our best varieties, 
in point of yield and quality of tubers will, if given proper 
culture and protection from insects and blight in a man- 
ner which will not in itself injure the vines, produce many 
of the seed bolls. 

There has not been a year for fourteen years when 
I have not been able to pick seed bolls in more or less 
abundance from varieties that are of the very best qual- 
ity for table use and largest in point of yield of tubers. 
New varieties have been constantly brought forward, 
many of them of great promise and vigor, only to run 
out in a few years, chiefly from the causes above given, 
but helped along in many minor ways. Many farmers 



25 

saved and planted only culls; these gave them good re- 
sults years ago, before the bug and the poison had de- 
stroyed the old-time vitality, but will not, except in rare 
instances, give a paying crop today. This is true also of 
many of the older varieties which have so far lost their 
vitalit}-. that it is practically useless to try and bring 
them back to productivity equal to some of the newer 
varieties. There can be no question but what there are 
thousands of farmers today planting potatoes of so low 
vitality that it is an impossibility for them to raise a pay- 
ing crop of tubers under any system of cultivation and pro- 
tection from insects and blights, even in a favorable sea- 
son. The remedy for the more Northern states is to get 
some newer strain and make careful selection each year 
from the best and most vigorous hills, coupled with a sys- 
tem of protection to the vines against insects sind blights 
that will not in itself destroy the vitality of the pleuits. 
Farther South, where the soil and climatic conditions are 
more unfavorable, there was a still more rapid decline, 
and even in those sections where the second crop is grown 
for seed there is a disposition to get Northern-grown seed 
every few years as a new start, in order to keep up the 
vitality. There has been a widespread effort on the part 
of some of the Ex. stations in the last few years to get a 
potato of large yielding capacity and of good table qual- 
ity, that is blight-resisting, but, so far as I am able to 
learn, with but little success, owing, I firmly believe, 
more to those having the work in charge failing to realize 
the deadly influence the arsenical poisons have on the 
vitality of this plant. 

As a proof of my contention along this line, I refer 
my reader to Fig. 4 of a field of Green ^Mountain, Jr., 
potatoes, which is a four-year-old seedling, having been 
originated by W. E. Johnson, of Bowdoin, Me., in 1905. 
The parent stock had been carefully protected from 
blights and insect injury without the use of any 
arsenical poison for several years previous to producing 
the seed boll from which the Green Mountain, Jr., was 
originated. 

This field was planted on an old run-out field or knoll, 
too poor to produce even a fair crop of weeds, and was 
given no fertilizing material whatever, but was protected 
from insects and blight in the same manner as its parents 
had been without the use of the arsenical poisons. As 



26 

the reader will note from the cut, there is the most perfect 
development of vines and bloom possible to obtain, and 
this in the face of the most severe drouth Southern 
Maine has known in the memory of her oldest living 
inhabitant. The yield per acre of 354 bushels, while it 
would not be considered remarkable on a good clover sod 
with liberal fertilization in a year of normal rainfall, 
shows to what extent we can bring back the potato to 
its old-time vigor when we get back to first principles. 

Fig. 5 shows the field at digging, October 15th, 1909. 
If a blight-proof potato is ever found, it will be devel- 
oped along these lines, as it is a practical impossibility 
to produce a blight-proof variety when the methods of 
culture are such that every year saps to a greater or less 
extent the original vitality. More than this, there is lit- 
tle hope of getting a seedling from a seed boll grown on 
plants that have had their vitality weakened by arsenical 
poisoning, that will develop vigor enough to be blight- 
proof, but the plants producing the seed boll from which 
we will get, if we ever do, a blight-proof variety of good 
yield and quality, must have behind them a series of 
years of unimpaired vigor, which can never be obtained 
if insect injury or arsenical poisoning is allowed. 

The orchardist of Colorado has found to his sorrow 
that the use of Paris green has poisoned, not only his trees 
to their death, but his land as well. If we had the vigor in 
our potatoes today we had forty years ago, before the use 
of Paris green, with the methods of culture and fertiliza- 
tion we are now giving them, I believe we are putting it 
low to say that the yield would be double what we are now 
getting. 

POTATOES FOR SEED 

As I have shown in the previous chapter, "Two 
Main Causes of the Deterioration of the Potato," that 
seed of strong vitality is of vital importance to the 
grower, the losses from poor seed w^ould be staggering 
if fully realized. Many a farmer has given up the plant- 
ing of this crop, with the idea that his land was not 
suited to it, when a successful grower on other soil 
would have had no better success with the same seed. 

I have carried on experiments along this line for years, 
some of which have cost me mzmy hundreds of dollars, and 
in spite of fertilization, cultivation and protection against 









m- 






at 














:,.^ 
M"-.'-' 



^^«ei^ 



28 

insects and diseases, the fact remains that the yield is large- 
ly governed by the seed we plant. No amount of care can 
produce a good crop from a iield that has come up weak 
and spindling. While such a state of affairs might, and 
does sometimes happen from other causes, it is mostly 
the result of poor seed. The true seed of the potato is in 
the potato boll, and the tuber is merely an enlargement 
of an underground stem, and as such it partakes of the 
character of the vine that produced it. If the vine was 
vigorous with ability to resist disease, just so sure will 
that tuber, if properly stored and planted, produce the 
same type of plant the next season, if kept free of all dis- 
ease. "Like begets like," and if tbbers are saved for 
seed from little, weak spindling- vines, we will have little, 
weak spindling vines in profusion the next year. It makes 
no difference whether those tubers come from vines 
weakened by disease, insects, climate conditions or 
arsenical poisoning, the vitality is lowered, and while 
extreme favorable soil and weather conditions will help 
greatly to produce a good crop from this kind of seed, 
the fact would remain that good seed planted on the 
same soil under the same conditions would have pro- 
duced a much better yield. Potatoes grown in the South 
rapidly lose their power to produce tubers, and it is sel- 
dom of much use to plant them even the second year. 
There is a belt that is too far north for the growing of 
the second crop for seed, and too far south to plant their 
own raising, which has to buy nearly all Northern-grown 
seed every year. To the grower who has to buy new seed 
every year from the North, it is of great importance to 
him to know something of the growing of that seed, and 
it is not out of place to point out a few methods in the 
growing, which the buyer should demand of the North- 
ern seed grower. 

Good seed is worth all it costs to grow it, but poor, 
weak seed is deau* at any price. There is a widespread prac- 
tice in Northern Maine of planting second-size potatoes 
without much attention being given to whether they come 
from vigorous hills or not. This is all wrong. Second-size 
potatoes taken from the bin year after year, can result in 
only one thing, the eaurly running out of the variety. Sec- 
ond size potatoes are all right for seed, provided they grew 
in hills showing vigor of plant and a goodly production of 
large, nice market tubers other than the one or more sec- 



29 

ond-size which the hill may contain. The practice of hill- 
selections of seed should be done, at least, every two or 
three years by the Northern grower, and every year will 
give better results. This involves some extra labor, but not 
so much as the average grower would think, and it is 
worth many times its cost. 

The process is simple, and more uniformity of selection 
can be had by confining one's self to the one-stalk hills in the 
field ; this can be varied, however, setting a standard for 
hills in about the ratio of not less than four nice potatoes 
large enough for market purposes to each hill of one stalk, 
and not less than seven, to each hill of two stalks, and ten, to 
a three-stalk hill, all grown from a single seed price. When 
the field to be selected from is from one-half to two-thirds 
ripened off, the grower, taking a bundle of twigs or sticks, 
goes over the field, up one row and down the next, and 
wherever there is a hill showing more vigor than the rest, 
marks it by placing one of the twigs, designating in this 
manner hills enough to furnish seed for the next season's 
planting. A little later when the field is ripe and ready for 
digging, it should be gone over with a hand-digging potato 
fork, and these marked hills dug out by this hand method. 
We know that all these marked hills have vigor that was 
apparent to anyone at the time the hills were marked, but 
what the grower did not know at that time, was whether or 
not they had desirability of tubers. It is not every vigorous 
hill that has tubers desirable for seed, either in number of 
tubers per hill or quality. Any marked hill that produces 
less tubers per stalk than we have set for our standard, 
should be discarded ; also any that varies in type from she 
original stock, or for any other reason, such as roughness or 
prongs. In making a selection in this manner, we have got 
the following points : First, vigor, which is of prime impor- 
tance, enabling the crop to be grown to withstand insects 
and blights without injury, when the weak stock, mixed 
in, which we have discarded by this selection, would be 
attacked by fungus diseases. This would spread to the 
more vigorous plants by being in such close proximity, and 
our whole field would die before it had grown a paying 
crop of tubers. Thousands of farmers have lost their potato 
fields at various times by having only a few weak, spindling 
hills there, which made breeding places for fungus diseases 
which would never have got started but for these weak hills. 
Second, the grower is getting all of his seed stock from 



30 

hills that have produced a good number of market-size tubers 
which greatly increase the yield. Third, it has enabled him 
to eliminate any desire to sport which is rampant in even 
some of our best varieties, and keeps any variety in which 
seed is being selected in this manner true to name, and puts 
a stop to so much of the seed stock sold to the Southern 
potato grower becoming badly mixed, which is one of the 
banes of some Northern grown seed. The seed grower 
making a selection of this kind for his own planting, his 
resultant crop is sure to give satisfaction to the purchaser 
who buys it to plant, and is worth much more to that pur- 
chaser. In my own experience I have had a single selection 
made in the above manner increase the yield the following 
year over one hundred bushels per acre over the same 
variety taken from the same field, but sorted out of the bin 
the following spring when desired for planting. This 
method of seed selection is as applicable to the farmers of 
other states as it is to the seed growers and farmers of 
Maine. In many cases this would do away with any need 
of sending North for seed stock, and the yield per acre 
would be doubled in a few years without any additional 
expense in growing the crop. In a section where it is not 
necessary to get new seed every year, one wishing to get a 
new variety or new stock of an old variety to grow seed 
to plant and not being able to buy seed grown from selected 
hills, should buy large size potatoes of the variety wanted 
that are smooth and free from disease. My rule is, where 
possible, not to take anything under a pound each of the 
medium late or main crop varieties. By so doing I am sure 
that the seed I get has vigor, for not little, weak, sickly hill 
or stalk ever produced a tuber to weigh a pound. Planting 
these, hill selection can be made from those hills producing 
the most tubers per hill in number and weight, and the pur- 
chaser has got new seed containing both vigor and pro- 
ductiveness at a minimum cost. In selecting seed stock on 
the above plan, the size of tubers would need to be governed 
somewhat by the variety ; for instance, with the Green 
Mountain or Norcross, a potato weighing a pound, is not an 
overgrown one, as in favorable conditions either variety will 
produce tubers smooth and nice weighing up to two and 
two and one-half pounds, and a tuber weighing a pound may 
be only one of a half-dozen grown on a single vigorous stalk, 
while on a variety like the Irish Cobbler potatoes weighing 
from one-half to three-quarters of a pound would indicate 



31 

vigor, and would be all right to plant to make a hill selec- 
tion from. 



%i[ 




#(P 


^^^-^ 


^■HiT* fl 


|»4P^ 



Photo No. 6. A plate of Clyde Potatoes. One of the 
best medium late potatoes grown in Maine today. 
Originated in l')02 by the 

Johnson Seed Potato Co. 



VARIETIES 

It is quite an important matter that the grower obtains 
a variety which will do well in his particular locality. It is 
a common occurrence to see two varieties planted on the 
same field, both receiving the same treatment and planted 
on the same day, one giving double the market tubers of 
the other, and the tubers of both being of the same general 
appearance, so much so that the ordinary grower would be 
unable to tell them apart. One would spell financial suc- 
cess and the other ruin. In those sections where the potato 
can be raised year after year without changing seed, the 
farmer has a chance to test out new varieties and seldom 
meets with heavy loss. Where new seed has to be bought 
every year for a large acreage and proves to be an inferior 
variety for that section, the loss is heavy. Again, a grower 
has got to conform to shape and color demanded by the 
market he sells in to get the most out of his crop. As a rule. 
the most of the large markets are demanding a round white 



32 

potato with a shallow eye, and many of these are of fine 
quality. Some of the best eating, largest yielding and blight- 
resisting varieties I know of, will not sell well in the City 
markets simply because the public judges them by color; but 
to the grower who largely retails his crop to his own cus- 
tomers, they are of value, as his crop, differing in color 
and perhaps shape, from the majority sold in his market, 
gives him an added individuality and helps him to build up 
and keep a fine local retail trade. 

There are many varieties which will not properly ma- 
ture if planted as late as June 1st and will skin badly when 
dug, and never get to market in shape to get the market 
price for good stock. There are but few of these grown in 
Maine, but this cannot be said of New York and Michigan, 
especially the latter, where a large proportion of the potatoes 
grown are of this type. Michigan would be the banner 
potato state in the Union today, if she had not got into the 
way of raising Rurals and other varieties of this class, which 
has killed her prestige in the potato markets. The time 
was not so many years ago w4ien Michigan largely governed 
the price in New York City, but that was before her farm- 
ers took to raising Rurals. Today Michigan potatoes sell 
about 15c per bushel less in New York City than does 
Maine stock. Yet Maine has much to learn along this line, 
she has no cause to cast reflections towards Michigan, the 
well graded ripened stock from Long Island brings from 
50c to 75c per bbl. more than the Maine tubers. I firmly 
believe much of the soil of Michigan to be capable of pro- 
ducing as fine potatoes as Long Island and to command as 
high a price, but that will never come to pass wdth the varie- 
ties generally planted in that state at the present time. 

For one to lay down a list of varieties for any section 
to plant would be folly, this I shall not do, but will name 
a few only of the newer varieties which have proved good 
from Maine to Minnesota. In doing this I shall not name 
any of the older ones except perhaps the "Norcross." There 
are but few varieties of potatoes that do not begin to fail 
after their fifteenth year. For this reason it would be use- 
less for me to name a potato for a section like Michigan, 
where it will take from five to eight years to get them gen- 
erally disseminated, which has reached the age of fifteen 
years from the seed boll. To do so is to see the variety run 
out by the time it becomes generally known. Thus I shall 
name but three of the Medium late varieties, but varieties 



33 

which will ripen up good and hard when planted as late as 
June 1st to 15th, and which are as fine table tubers as can 
be grown. These are the Clyde, Green Mountain Jr. and 
Snow. See photos Nos. 6 and 7. The Clyde and Green 
Mountain Jr. are only seven and ten years from the seed 
boll, and the Green Mountain Jr. should not be confound- 
ed with the old Green Mountzun. The Snow is older, its 
age I am not sure of, but would place it around twelve 
years. These three potatoes will suit most any section, 
the Snow for light and sandy soils or light clay loam, the 
Clyde for heavy and clay soils, while the Green Mountain 
Jr. will do well on either if not too heavy clay or too light 
sand. These are three distinct varieties, yet they are so 
near alike in looks and eating qualities that no one can 
tell them apart in the market. Here in these three vau'ie- 
ties we have one that will suit the farmer who has light 
soil, as well ais the farmer with heavy, and which will suit 
the buyer and the market, for no one can tell them apart 
except the expert. I might go on and name several more 
which are good, but no better than these, but to do so 
would only tend to confuse, amd help no one. \\ hat any 
section needs which has a diversity of soils are varieties 
which will do v/ell on each, but which, when it conies to 
marketing will be alike as to shape, size, color and eating 
qualities, all of which are found in the above three. 

I shall say nothing abovit the Rurals or potatoes of 
that class, they have their place, but they should at least be 
planted early enough to get ripe before digging and near 
enough together to prevent being overgrown. Much of this 
unripe, overgrown stock is hardly fit to eat and is never 
a source of pride to the grower. 

As to early varieties the country today lacks a first 
class early potato. I shall mention but three or four and 
these with considerable mental reservation. The Irish Cob- 
bler is perhaps the most generally known in the East. It is 
roundish white and a good yielder in many localities, while 
perhaps but a few miles away its yield is very light. The 
eyes are apt to be deep and the stem end is sunken and its 
quality is not first class in many sections. The chief reason 
it is grown in the Xorth is to furnish seed for the early 
Southern crop, and the same can be said of the Red Bliss. 
Both of these potatoes have got to an age where they have 
done their best, but will be grown for some years yet for 
want of something better. The early Ohio is perhaps the 



34 

leading potato of the Central West. It is a better all-around 
potato than either the Cobbler or Bliss, it is reddish in color 
and when it grows well is of fine shape alid good quality. 
I will mention but one more of the Early sorts, and this is 
the Early White Albino. It is the least known of either 1 
have mentioned, but ahead of them all as to quality and 
yield. Its color is white and of as good shape as the Early 
Ohio. See photo No. 8. 




Photo No. 7. Sliowing two liills of the Green Mountain Jr. potatoes. A large strong yielder orij;inated 
1905 by the Johnson Seed Potato Co. 



SAVING POTATO BOLL SEED 
There seems to be a lack of knowledge among many 
as to the proper way to save the seed from the potato boll. 
From letters received by the author, it would seem that 
many who are so fortunate as tQ find seed bolls on their 
potato vines have difficulty in keeping the seed through the 
winter, and I am led to believe that they have tried to keep 



35 

the seed over in the pulalu IjuU itself. This is all wrong, 
and I do not believe it can be done in a satisfactory manner 
by the majority of those who try it. 

The seeds of the potato boll should be saved in the 
same manner as are the seed from the tomato. 

Take a small vessel and cut open the bolls and squeeze 
the seeds into it, getting as little of the pulp as possible. The 
vessel should not be tilled more than half full of seeds and 
pulp, but warm water should be added and the vessel con- 
taining the seeds set in a warm place for 36 to 48 hotu-s 
until the mess ferments so that the little seeds will wash 
clear from the pulp. Care will be necessary in doing this 
work or the seeds will be lost. After being well washed 
they should be dried. This leaves them clean and dry, eacli 
seed a free atom. There are about nine hundred thousand 
of the seeds in a pound. When planting some very fine 
rich soil should be taken. Old rotted cow manure four or 
live years old, well screened is good, as it will hold moisture 
better than common soil. The seeds should be planted the 
last of March either in a hot house, cold frame or even in a 
box in the kitchen window, and should be covered very 
slightly with the soil. This should be kept damp by fre- 
quent watering or by a piece of woolen cloth spread over 
the box until the seeds begin to break ground. With me 
they come up about as quickly as weed seeds and it is rare 
that any fail to germinate. They can be transplanted like 
tomatoes, and will in many cases give tubers the first year 
that will weigh a pound or over. This is contrary to the 
common belief, but I have had a single little plant trans- 
planted June 15th which yielded twenty-three market sized 
tubers with a total yield in weight of four and three-fourths 
pounds. 

ORIGINATING NEW VARIETIES 

Most new varieties are obtained from planting the true 
seed of the potato, which is found in the potato boll, the 
product of the blossom of the plant. These are as full of 
little seeds as are tomatoes, and there may be from a few^ 
dozen to several hundred seeds in each boll. Each separate 
seed produces a different variety. There is much more 
liability of the originators getting some new variety of value, 
if care has been exercised in growing the boll from whicli 
the seed has been obtained. Some varieties which grow 



36 



coarse, ill-shapen tubers, of very poor eating quality, seem 
to throw nearly, if not all their vitality into producing seed 
bolls. The varieties obtained from seed from bolls of this 
pedigree are most sure to be nearly, if not all, of the same 




Photo No. 8. A plate of early White Albinos, 
both as to quality and yield. 



A better early potato it would be hard to find, 



general characteristics as their parent. Probably not one in 
thousands will ever be of any value to the general potato 
grower. One wishing to originate new varieties should 
take one of our best standard varieties, and by a proper 
system of culture and protection from insects and blight, 
so build up its vitality that it will produce potato bolls. This 
is easily done in the Northern states, but might be impos- 
sible farther South. One wishing to carry on this work 
South of where our best varieties can be made to produce 
seed, should get seed from these best varieties, which are 
grown in the North, rather than waste their time with seed 
from those varieties which produce tubers of practically 
no market value. 

Personally, I prefer to take seed bolls from a field 
containing only one variety. This should be of large yield- 
ing capacity, combined with very high eating quality, with 
no other variety planted near them. Seed taken from such 
a source will produce a greatly increased per cent, of valu- 
able varieties. 

The originating of the new varieties is of vital impor- 



37 

tancc to llie potato industry of the country, and the man 
who brings out a new seedling, which is a decided improve- 
ment over the older standard sorts, is entitled to a great 
deal of praise and financial return. The originator has his 
own troubles ; a new seedling may give promise of being a 
great acquisition and make good from the beginning, up to 
four or five years old, and then go down in a single year, 
proving worthless. If a new seedling proves good for seven 
or eight years, and increases in productivity and quality each 
year, the originator can feel reasonably certain that he has 
something of value. The only proper way to test a new 
seedling is in general field culture, side by side with the best 
standard variety to be had. The seedling to be tested should 
be at least two years old, and four or five would give a 
truer idea of their worth. If they give larger yields then 
the standard variety, and quality and other characteristics 
are equal or superior, and give this result for two or more 
years, the originator is reasonably safe in pushing its sale. 
To the farmer, however, I would give this word of warn- 
ing — don't invest a large sum in any new seedling until it 
has been tested out on your own farm in a small way; a 
variety that will do well in one section may not in another. 
Every large potato grower should test the newer produc- 
tions. There will be so many of them that he will have to 
cast aside that no large sum should be invested in any one, 
until it has been tried and proven. 

WHOLE POTATOES FOR SEED 

The question of planting small to medium size pota- 
toes whole, probably has occurred to every grower. It is 
one that should be thoroughly understood and the source 
from which the seed came be known in every case before 
it is planted. Failure to do this is likely to result in a 
loss in the yield of the crop. The size of the tuber and 
the time, and condition it is in when planted, has much 
to do with the results obtained. In testing out the value 
of small-sized whole potatoes for seed, I have planted a 
good many hundred bushels of them, and under certain 
conditions, there is no seed we can plant that will give 
us the results in yield and desirability that can be ob- 
tained from medium-size potatoes planted whole. 

Small tubers that are to be planted whole should 
come from good, vigorous hills; this is of the first im- 



38 

portance. They can be selected from a bin, provided these 
were grown from selected seed and the whole field was 
vigorous and thrifty. If there were many spindling stalks 
or weak hills in the field, the small-size potatoes should 
never be planted that grew on it. A good, vigorous hill 
seldom produces more than one or two tubers, small 
enough to plant whole, and many times there will not be 
one in several hills small enough for this purpose. The 
weak, spindling stalks and hills, not having vigor enough to 
produce large tubers, will nearly all be of the size needed 
for planting whole. Thus it will be seen, unless care is 
used in getting seed of this kind, we will be planting 
tubers largely from the weakest hills in the previous crop ; 
and as "like begets like," our crop is sure to suffer. The 
best size of tuber to use I have found to be just about as 
large as a medium hen's egg, and with rows three feet 
apart and seed dropped fourteen inches apart in the row 
of a size will take about twenty bushels per acre. 

If a potato of this size is planted when in a dormant 
condition or before the sprouts have started, there will 
usually be from one to three sprouts start from the seed 
end. These start so much quicker and stronger than those 
from eyes nearer the stem end, that they will use up the 
plant food contained in the tuber, and there will be no 
sprouts start from the other eyes. If tubers of too large 
size are used, the quick starting sprouts on the seed end 
will not use up all the plant food they contain and there 
will be many weak sprouts start from the other eyes. 
These would not amount to anything as tuber-producers, 
and to all intents and purposes are simply as so many 
weeds. It is not best to plant tubers of too small size, even 
though they come from good, vigorous hills, neither is it 
best to plant any potatoes whole after the eyes have once 
started, as there are most sure to be too many stalks in 
a hill. This can be varied in case of very early potatoes 
where the side sprouts are broken ofif by hand, leaving 
only one or two of the best on the seed end. The advan- 
tages of planting whole seed when they come from thrifty, 
vigorous hills are that they are certain to produce a per- 
fect stand of plants, no matter how the weather may turn 
after planting. The vines grow faster and the crop will 
mature from one to two weeks ahead of cut-seed planted 
at the same time and under the same conditions. The result- 
ant crop will be smoother and rounder potatoes than usually 



39 

grow li\>ni cut scchI. Why iliis is so I have never been 
able to determine. In phintiny whole seed, if desired, 
more fertilizer can be used in the drill at time of plant- 
ing, without injury to the seed, as there is no cut surface 
for it to come into contact with. There is also less injury 
to the seed by wire worms when planted whole, if they 
are present in the soil, than is the case of seed cut. 

GREENING AND BUDDING SEED POTATOES 

In planting potatoes for early market, time can be 
gained by budding or sprouting 'them. This is especially 
true for the small grower, who can spend the time neces- 
sary to do this work just right. Many times the owner of a 
small garden wishes to grow a few early potatoes for his 
own table, and anything that can be done to hasten early 
maturity is of value to him. While potatoes can be sprouted 
or started for later planting, with a potato planter, the buds 
or sprouts should not be allowed to get growth enough so 
that they will be broken off in the machine. This is the most 
sure to be the case if the buds are allowed to get much of a 
growth. No potatoes which are to be planted in a planter 
should be allowed to start their sprouts to the extent that 
they will be broken off by the machine when planting. This 
results in a loss of vitality, as a portion of the plant food 
stored up in the seed piece has been used up. The second 
starting of the bud w'ill be weaker than the first, and cannot, 
all other things being equal, produce as many tubers as will 
the first budding of the sprout. In starting the sprouts for 
early hand-planting, the potatoes should be brought into the 
light and air, where it is reasonably warm. The stronger 
the light, the shorter and greener the sprouts. For very 
early planting, it is better to have the sprouts started in semi- 
darkness, so that they will be a reddich pink in color and 
thick and stocky. Such sprouts will push up through the 
soil quicker than will the short, dark, green sprouts started 
in bright sunlight. 

Potatoes sprouted in this maimer otight to be planted 
when the sprouts are just right, as delay of even a few days 
will allow them to get so far long that it will be almost 
impossible to cut and plant them, even by the most careful 
man, without breaking them oft'. Those who are intend- 
ing to plant only a bushed or two in their kitchen garden, and 
desire to get them as early as possible, the seed can be put 



40 

into boxes, whicli should not be over five or six inches deep, 
and placed in a light, warm place where the heat is not too 
great, and sprouted there. Those who are to plant a larger 
area, an available barn floor will do, provided light and 
warmth enough can be obtained ; or they can be spread out 
of doors in a dry, warm, sunny place. In the later case 
care must be taken to fully protect them from the cold 
nights, as long as there is any danger of their freezing. As 
very early potatoes are planted usually before the late frosts 
are over, and as they would need to be sprouted from one 
to two weeks before planting, the danger of sprouting out 
of doors so early in the season is quite considerable. But 
for the late or main crop there is no better way than spread- 
ing them right out upon the ground. A place should be 
selected, if possible, where there is a good turf and still not 
but little grass. If there is no turf the sprouts on the under 
side of the tubers will take root into the soil, which very 
materially injures them for planting. On the other hand, if 
there is too much grass to grow up around them, the same 
thing will happen. Partial shade is better at first, if the 
tubers are right from the cellar and hard and cold, but if 
they have been exposed to light in the cellar for a week or 
two it is all right to spread them right out in the sun when 
first taken from the cellar. The point is, that too great a 
change from a cold, dark cellar, where the tubers are hard 
and cold, to direct rays of the sun, is not the best plan. 
Potatoes handled in this manner will sprout and grow all 
right, but the change is too severe for the very best results, 
and if it is necessary to take them right from the cellar to a 
place selected to spread them where they will get the direct 
sunlight all day, it is far better to leave them in bags there 
for a few days, turning the bags over once or twice in order 
that all the tubers may green and soften somewhat before 
spreading them out. They should not be spread over one 
deep on the grass, and it is better if they are to lay there 
several weeks to rake them over at least once a week. This 
will expose the whole surface of the tuber to the direct rays 
of the sun. It is claimed by many that the sun's rays will 
kill the scab fungus, and my experience is that it is at least 
beneficial in this respect. I have seen many acres of potatoes 
showing missed hills, from ten to fifty per cent, or even 
more, which was wholly the result of neglect or want of 
care or knowledge in handling the seed before planting. 
The loss from a poor stand of plants to the potato growers 



41 



of this country every year is enormous, and when we con- 
sider that a large part of this can he overcome hy a httle 
care in handhng the seed before planting, it becomes of very 
great importance, not only to the grower, but the consumer 
as well. 

To begin with potatoes intended for seed should be 
stored in a dark, damp cellar, and kept as cool as possible 
without any danger of freezing. If they can be kept per- 
fectly dormant up to the time they are needed, with the 
tubers dry, hard and cold, we have them in the best possible 
condition to make a start for a good crop. With potatoes 
in this condition, some two or three weeks before we are 
to plant them, they should be taken from the cellar, put into 
sacks, a bushel in a sack, and soaked for two hours in a 
solution of formaldehyde. (See chapter Treatment for 
Scab.) When the bags are removed from the solution they 
can be placed upon the ground, where the potatoes are to 
be spread and let remain there some four or five days, turn- 
ing them over once or twnce during this time so that all may 
soften and green alike. Then spread them out only one 
deep on the turf. If they are raked over about once a week, 
so that the sprouts on the under side won't send roots into 
the soil, they will keep in almost perfect condition for plant- 
ing all summer. I have had them keep in perfect condition, 
treated in this manner, spread in the direct sunlight, until 
spoiled by the frosts of October. Seed treated in this man- 
ner will give a perfect stand of plants unless insects or mice 
destroy the seed after planting. 

Now if the grower finds his seed tubers starting badly 
in the cellar long before it is safe to spread them out of 
doors, the same process as I have described can be followed 
by spreading under cover where there is light. 

SELECTING AND CUTTING SEED 

Having selected a variety that will thrive in his lo- 
cality, the grower must select seed free of scab. Good, 
smooth tubers, of an average size, will cut up into more uni- 
form pieces, which is a saving of trouble, if to be used in 
any of the planters. It is really of more importance to the 
farmer, who is using a planter, that his seed be cut to a 
uniform size, than that there should be a certain number of 
eyes on each piece. Hand-cutting by one, who knows his 
business, is to be preferred to any of the potato-cutting 



42 

machines, which mangle more or less and cause an uneven 
stand. In hand-cutting, the knife should be ground very 
thin, not much thicker than common writing paper, or just 
as thin as it can be and stand the work of cutting. This will 
allow the user to cut many more bushels in a day's time, as 
he will feel hardly any resistance as the knife passes through 
the tuber, and the cut pieces will not be mangled. In cut- 
ting potatoes large enough to make over four pieces, it is 
better to first cut the tuber in half, as shown in the center 
of photo No. 9 and if very large, into quarters. Either the 
center or right hand tuber, shown in the cut, should be quar- 
tered. In all three of the potatoes shown in the cut the 
stem end is down. In cutting up either into halves or quar- 
ters, cut above the eye. The eyes of a potato have roots 
always running towards the stem end of the tuber. These 
take the stored-up plant-food, which the tuber contains, to 
the sprout. If these are cut off close to the eye, while there 




Photo No. 9. Showing method of cutting seed tubers, the stem end being down. 



43 

luighl be a good-sized piece of the tuber above the eye or 
towards the seed end, the sprouts would have no way of 
getting the plant-food it might contain, as it has no eye roots 
running towards tiiat end of the tuber. In this case it would 
not make so strong or thrifty a plant or yield the tubers it 
otherwise would. 

The potato on the lleft, shown in the cut, is a medium- 
sized tuber, or what would be termed a good second. As 
the reader will note, the stem end is cut off, cutting above 
at least one good eye and taking about one-third of the tuber. 
This usually allows from one to three or more good eyes on 
this stem end third of the tuber, even in a variety possessing 
but few eyes. The next cut is made by cutting from the 
upper or seed end down towards the stem end. This makes 
three pieces of a tuber of this size, and there will always 
be plenty of eyes on each, and very evenly divided between 
the three pieces. It also has the advantage of having them 
of very uniform size, which insures much better work with 
any of the planters. As it is no more work to cut potatoes 
with this idea in view of cutting above the eye, and the pota- 
toes will come up a little more vigorous, it is well to observe 
it. With potatoes the size of the one on the left, cut as that 
one is, it will take about twelve bushels of seed per acre, 
with rows three feet apart, and dropped fourteen inches apart 
in rows. Cut seed should never be left in bags or piles so 
that there is any danger of its heating. Seed that has 
heated even a very little is unfit to plant, and if it conies 
up at all it is weak and spindling and beyond any possi- 
bility of making a paying crop. The proper way to treat 
cut seed is to sprinkle liberally with land plaster (gyp- 
sum), as fast as it is cut, being sure to get all the cut 
surface covered with plaster. This keeps them cool amd 
prevents dying out, and if spread out, not over six inches 
deep until wanted to plant, will not hurt, even if cut a 
week or ten days before planting, provided they are kept 
in a cool, shady place. Sulphur is also good for dusting 
the seed pieces- as they are cut. In fact I have used the 
latter almost entirely these last few years, especially on land 
v.here wire worms were known to be present. Sulphur is 
not a sure deterent for preveiUing the wire worms from 
getting into the newly ])lanted seed, but where care has been 
used to get all the cut surface well covered with the sulphur, 
I am siu'e tliat it prevents damage by this worm to quite an 
extent. 



44 

If fertilizer is used, the land plaster or sulphur will 
also prevent it from coming in contact with the cut sur- 
face of the seed, which otherwise it might do, causing 
decay to begin before the sprout starts, and many times 
the seed altogether. This is more likely to take place 
when seed is planted as fast as cut, and experience shows 
that the best results come from seed cut from twenty- 
four to forty-eight hours before planting, and liberally 
sprinkled with the land plaster or sulphur at the time of 
cutting. It will pay any grower to follow along this line 
as far as possible. 

The size of the cut pieces has much to do with the 
vigor of the sprout, and a fairly liberal piece should be 
allowed, especially if the weather is cold and wet at plant- 
ing. With rows three feet apart and pieces dropped four- 
teen inches apart in the row, twelve bushels of seed per 
acre is none too much, but if the weather is warm and 
the soil warm and moist, the seed can be cut finer, say 
to ten bushels per acre, and a good, vigorous stand result. 

A great many growers practice clipping the tip off 
the seed end of the tuber. There is nothing to be gained 
by this ; in fact, in many cases, it is a distinct loss. Of all 
eyes on the tuber, the one or two directly on the seed end 
are the earliest and most vigorous, and the clipping of 
these deprives the groAver of the strongest and best eyes 
on the whole potato. This may not possibly be true of 
some varieties, but it certainly is of the greater number. 
The general feeling of those who practice' this is that 
there will be so many stalks come from the cluster of eyes 
at the seed end that there will be too many potatoes set 
to grow to good market size. This is not true of potatoes 
planted in a dormant condition, as one or two, visually 
one eye on the seed or tip end, will start so much quicker 
and stronger that all the plant food in the potato, if small 
or from reasonable sized pieces will be taken, the other 
eyes failing to make any growth. 

One of the reasons why the Author prefers the hand 
over machine-cut seed is that it enables the one cutting 
to keep a much better oversight over the tubers cut. This 
allows him to throw out many which would not be 
noticed by one running a cutter. There are so many dis- 
eases of the potato which are spreading over the country, 
some of them very bad, like '"Stem Rot" and "Late 
Blight," that no tuber which shows any sign of disease 



45 

should be planted by anyune. The soakintj of the seed 
tubers in the formalin solution will kill the spores of most 
of these diseases which are on the surface of the tubers. 
It is a much more serious matter when one has the "Stem 
Rot" or "Late Blight" fungus to contend with, as the 
spores of these are inside of the tuber itself and cannot 
be killed by soaking the seed. Therefore, any tuber, when 
cut, which shows any discoloration which may be either 
of these diseases, should be thrown away and the knife 
disinfected before another tuber is cut. The writer keeps 
a pint glass jar filled with a strong solution of formalin, 
and dips his knife into it whenever he cuts into a tuber 
which shows any discoloration from any cause. Such 
discoloration might be harmless, and again with pur- 
chased seed, it might contain the spores of one or more 
of the worst diseases a potato growler has to contend w'ith, 
and by using the knife without disinfecting it, would 
carry these spores to several other tubers. It is better to 
have two knives for each one cutting, and when a potato 
is cut into wdiich shows signs of any disease, the blade 
can be placed in the formalin solution and the other knife 
be used until another bad seed tuber is cut into, when 
that knife can be placed in the solution and the first knife 
be used again. My own opinion is that it is better to do 
this every few' minutes, even if the operator has seen no 
signs of diseased tubers. The cost of enough of the 
formalin solution and the time taken to change knives is 
so small as not to be even reckoned with, and it will make 
many hundred hills difference on each acre planted, if 
there is by any chance a few^ tubers with the stem rot or 
late blight in the seed potatoes. As the formaldehyde 
solution loses its strength very rapidly when exposed to 
air, the writer uses a glass preserving jar to hold the strong 
solution necessary to disinfect the knives. Keep the jar 
covered at all times when not actually cutting the seed 
tubers. When the cutting stops, even for the dinner hour, 
the cover is put on the jar, having the rubber underneath 
which makes the jar air tight. If care is used to keep the 
jar covered at all times when not actually cutting pota- 
toes, one mixture of the solution will do for several days' 
cutting of seed. 

PLANTING F.ARLY POTATOES IN A GARDEN 
In treating on the planting, I shall take it up under 



46 

three divisions : P'irst, taking up planting of the very early 
varieties in a small way. Those who are growing a few 
for their own table, and desire to get them very early, can 
take more pains in planting them than can the larger grower. 

The gain of a few days in the maturing of the crop 
more than pays for the extra time and trouble necessary to 
obtain this result. A warm, sunny slope to the south, or 
better still, to the southeast, on land as little subject to late 
frosts as can be selected, will, of course, be the best. Tt 
should be well fitted by deep plowing as soon as frost is out 
so the work can be done. Frequent workings with the har- 
row, both to fine and lighten the soil, and also to warm it, 
will, if it can be so arranged to have this work done without 
too much cost, help gain a few extra days in maturing the 
crop, and in this way prove profitable. If these harro wings 
can be done just after the heat of the day, turning under the 
top or warm soil and bringing up the colder soil underneath, 
and followed for a few days, if the weather is warm, will 
increase the warmth in the soil to quite an extent. A few 
extra degrees of heat in the soil early, means a great deal 
to the grower of early potatoes. When the soil is well 
fitted, furrows should be opened quite deeply, and for these 
early varieties, a distance of from twenty-six to thirty-four 
inches between furrows is room enough. For extra early 
potatoes, there is nothing that will force a quick growth any 
better than fine hen manure, it being rich in nitrogen. If the 
potatoes are liberally sprinkled with land plaster w^ien cut, 
and sulphur scattered along the rows at planting, usually 
but little damage will result from scab from this use of hen 
dressing, where potatoes are to be dug early. Later on, when 
the potatoes have well started, some fertilizer containing 
an abundance of phosphoric acid and potash to force tuber 
formation and growth should be used. If hen manure is 
used, it should be drilled along the furrow and mixed into 
the soil, so the seed pieces when dropped will not come in 
direct contact with it. The same rule would also apply to 
commercial fertilizer; if circumstances make it necessary 
to use barn or stable manure, it will do no harm to the seed 
to drop it right upon the dressing. 

The objection to this is in the labor involved to drill 
the manure, and the ever-present danger of scab. Rot need 
be but little feared on very early potatoes. The seed pieces 
should be dropped about fifteen inches apart in the row, 
some taking the time and trouble to place these with the 



47 

sprouts up. This is a needless waste of time and labor. I 
have carefully tested this, and if there is any difference in 
time of coming up, it is in fa\or of those pieces dropped 
with the sprouts down. The tirst covering of this seed, 
while it will depend somewhat on the nature of the soil, 
should be light, not over one and one-half inches in the 
heavier soils, and two and two and one-half inches in the 
lighter, and the rows should be deep enough so that after the 
seed is covered, there still should be a depression of some 
two or three inches. If the seed has been well sprouted 
and carefully planted, it will begin to break ground in from 
one to two weeks, according to weather conditions. The 
depression along the rows can be gradually filled in as the 
plants grow. The.weeder can be used, if run lightly, but 
care should be taken not to break off any sprouts from these 
early potatoes, as the time taken for the weakened seed 
pieces to throw another sprout will make it so late, that that 
hill wall be worthless when the others are ready to dig, and 
for all practical purposes might just as w^ell have been 
entirely destroyed. If at any time there is danger of frosts 
after the potatoes break ground, they should be buried up 
with soil ; this can be done very c^uickly with a horse hoe, 
and if there is a depression along the row, they can be buried 
up quite deeply without making too much of a ridge, and as 
soon as the danger of the frost is over, the weeder can 
be again used to smooth the field oft" level, killing out all 
weeds which have started. This will put the field in con- 
dition to be again buried if another frost threatens. Pre- 
vious to the second burying, an application of fertilizer 
should be scattered along the rows, and the second burying 
should cover this fertilizer at least three inches. If this fer- 
tilizer contains quite a per cent of nitrogen in the form of 
nitrate of soda, it will give the plants a very quick start, as 
they have at this period a well-developed root system. This 
nitrogen would not be so much needed in case of potatoes 
planted on hen manure, but a fertilizer containing a high per 
cent of phosphoric acid and potash applied in the same man- 
ner would be highly beneficial in this case. 

The point in getting potatoes early, is to get them up 
as soon as possible in order that they can develop root 
growth, and still keep the tops small enough so that they 
can be covered with soil at any time to protect them from 
late frosts. In this manner, with a well-developed root 
.system and the second application of fertilizer applied at 



48 

just the right time, the grower can produce a crop that 
will catch "the high prices of the early market. As the 
reader will see, this method could not be used in large 
fields where it is necessary to use a planter, but in a 
small way it has advantages. Well-sprouted seed, 
planted and covered lightly at first, practically insures 
a perfect stand of plants. This, many times, will largely 
make up for the extra cost of the labor involved. 

Another point for the kitchen garden grower, is to 
take medium potatoes of about the size of a large hen's 
egg and sprout them as above described. At planting, 
break off all sprouts but one or two of the best and 
strongest at the seed end of the tuber. In this way there 
will not be one chance in a hundred of the seed rotting 
in the ground, no matter how cold and wet the weather 
may turn. Of all eyes on a potato, those on the seed end 
are the earliest and strongest, and by breaking ofi: all 
but one or two of these w^e have the very earliest and 
strongest eyes on the whole potato. 

These having such a start will take out so much of 
the plant food contained in the tuber that there will sel- 
dom be enough left to start any more stalks. Whole pota- 
toes, of the size above described, taken from the cellar 
in a dormant condition or before the eyes have started 
in the least, and planted whole, will seldom produce, on 
an average, more than four stalks to each tuber planted. 
This is too many for very early varieties, as the resulting 
crop would be too many in number and of too small size. 
By breaking off all but two or three, or if large-sized 
tubers were wanted very early, all but one, it would mean 
but one strong, vigorous stalk in a hill which would pro- 
duce the result wanted. 

If the grower will take two bushels of medium tubers, 
about hen's egg size, from the cellar when they are in a dor- 
mant condition, cutting one bushel of them either in halves, 
thirds or quarters, as best suits him, and plant the other 
bushel whole, side by side with these cut ones on the 
same day, under the same treatment, he will find those 
planted whole will mature or ripen from a week to ten 
days ahead of those cut. The cutting of the tubers seems 
to delay its maturing its crop. If we take a tuber of the 
size of a hen's egg and sprout it as we must to get a very 
early start of our crop and plant it whole, all the eyes 
which have gotten well started will produce a stalk, re- 



49 

suiting- in loo many stalks in a place, and m p^cl both re- 
sults tending- to the earliness of our crop from both sprout- 
ing and planting whole seed, Ave are obliged to break ofif 
all but one or two of the strongest sprouts on sprouted 
medium-sized potatoes and then planting them whole. 
This is too much labor, except in a small way, for the 
small grower. 

FIELD PLANTING OF EARLY POTATOES 

In planting early potatoes where the acreage is large 
enough to make it necessary that the work should be done 
with the planter, the sprouts cannot be allowed to start 
as much as with the carefully hand-plantedl tuber. Still, 
if the crop is desired earl}^, quite a little time can be 
gained by starting the sprouts in a warm, light place. The 
long white sprouts which start in the cellar are of no use ; 
they only sap the vitality of the tuber, and cause the next 
set of sprouts to be weaker, and they will not produce 
the crop of potatoes the first would. The seed should be 
kept in a cold, dark place where the temperature is about 
thirty-five degrees, to get the best results. A few weeks 
previous to planting, they should be brought into a warm, 
light place and spread where the sprouts will start. I do 
not prefer for the sun to shine directly upon potatoes put 
to sprout, for the very early crop to be planted in a small 
way by hand, as described under that head, but it is all 
right for those wdiich are to be planted through a ma- 
chine, the sun will green and toughen the sprouts, and at 
the same time soften up the tubers. Potatoes exposed to 
direct sunlight will start their sprouts more slowly and 
they will be stouter and less liable to break off. In other 
words, direct sunlight will seem to put the potato in bet- 
ter shape to start its sprouts quickly when planted in 
suitable soil, and at the same time start them the least 
before planting. As it won't do for seed, which is run 
through a planter, to have the sprouts but just well 
started, owing to their breaking off, this is a decided ad- 
vantage. 

Potatoes Avarmed and softened by the sun, with the 
sprouts just well showing in the eyes, will come forward 
and be from one to two weeks ahead of the same seed 
taken from the cellar or pit, and when cutting, this gives 
a chance to thr'iw away all impotent eyes and all tubers 



50 

in which the sprouts fail to start. This insures a much 
better stand of plants. The ground should be well fitted 
in order that the planter can do its best work. The depth 
to plant early potatoes with a machine must, to a cer- 
tain extent, be governed by local conditions. In sections 
where there is but little danger of moisture becoming- 
short early in the season, they can be planted more shal- 
low. The deeper they are covered the longer they will be 
in coming" up, and in many cases the weaker they will be. 
If the crop was desired as early as possible, I should not 
have them covered over two inches below the surface of the 
ground when the ridges which the machine left in plant- 
ing is leveled off. This leveling off should be done as 
soon as possible after planting-. In order to be sure that 
all seed is covered on an average of two inches after the 
surface has been smoothed down, the planter must be 
set so that there will be at least five inches of soil over 
the g-reater part of it as the planter leaves the rows be- 
fore leveling'. This extra three inches should be worked 
off at once, as it prevents both air, light and warmth from 
penetrating- to the planted seed, and delays growth and 
would retard the crop many days. The top soil is the 
warmest in the early spring, but we have got to keep in 
mind the fact that later in the season, the soil deeper 
down contains more moisture, and is in better condition 
for growth of tubers than is that nearer the surface. We 
must have even our early potatoes rooted as deeply as 
we can, and when we have planted them only two inches 
below the surface, we have made as great a sacrifice for 
warmth and an early start of the crop as the exigencies 
of the later part of the season will warrant. 

In planting early varieties of potatoes, I have found 
it best not to use over seven or eight hundred pounds of 
high-grade fertilizer per acre, in the drill, at planting 
time. Early varieties are not so vigorous, as a rule, as 
the later or main crop, and the amount of fertilizer that 
many times will not cause any appreciable damage to 
the later kinds will do quite an amount of damage to the 
seed of an early variety. The rows of an early variety, 
with its usually smaller growth of vine, can be several 
inches nearer together, most growers planting from 
twenty-six to thirty inches. 

In planting early potatoes, It is better to have fer- 
tilizer of two different formulas. The one to be used in the 



51 

drill to have its nitrogen in a slower form tham nitrate of 
soda, as it is usually several weeks before the plants would 
have root growth enough to readily use it. Nitrate of soda 
is available over night when placed in damp soil, and 
would be, in case of heavy rain previous to the potatoes 
breaking ground, largely lost to the crop. When plants are 
well up, so that the rows can be plainly seen, the balance 
oC the fertilizer to be used should be applied. In my ex- 
perience, I have got the best results from applying this 
along the rows and by hilling the plants, covering them 
some three or more inches. 

This second application of fertilizer can have nearly 
half of its nitrogen content in the form of nitrate of soda. 
The plants will now have a large root system, and can 
use it, and it will cause them to make a very quick growth 
at this time. This is of much importance, as the quicker 
the ground can be covered with vines the less moisture 
is lost by evaporation, and the more rapid growth at this 
time the less real damage is done by insects, especially 
that scourge to early potatoes, the flea beetle. The 
quicker we can get our vine growth on early potatoes, 
the better, and I know of no way to so rapidly push it 
along as by an application of fertilizer along the rows, 
containing quite a part of its nitrogen in the form of 
nitrate of soda, after the plants have broken ground and 
have a well-developed root system. 

PLAXTING THE LATE OR MAIN CROP 

In planting the late, or main crop, but little dilTerence in 
the method is required over the machine-planted early crop. 
The seed should never be allowed to sprout in the cellar or 
pit, as these sprouts are of no use and result in a great loss 
of vitality. If it is possible when one finds his seed stock 
starting in the cellar before he can use it, it should be gotten 
out into the sunlight and spread out, not over one deej). 
Potatoes that have begun to sprout will keep in good condi- 
tion to plant, spread out in the direct sunlight much better 
and longer than in any other way. If they have been kept 
in cold storage, at a temperature too low for sprouts to 
start, they will require considerable more time to break 
ground than if they are warmed up a short time before 
planting. The ideal way to treat any potatoes intended for 
seed is to keep them at such a temperature that the sprouts 



52 

will not start, and then a short time before needing them to 
])lant to bring them into the light and sun. In the case of 
the late or main crop, to expose them to direct rays of the 
sun, spread out thinly just long enough to get the buds well 
started. They can be spread out of doors on the grass, but 
it is much better to have them under cover in a building with 
windows enough to let in plenty of sunlight, as then there 
is no danger of late frosts doing them damage. In cutting 
such potatoes, all weak eyed ones can be readily detected 
and thrown out, which would be impossible to do if cut right 
from the cellar or pit. Seed handled in this way has all its 
vitality to put into the sprouts which are to make our crop. 

This one point in handling seed potatoes may make a 
difference between a good profit and a no inconsiderable 
loss. The method of cutting seed is described under that 
head. The planting of the late or main crop should be deep- 
er than for the earlier planted. The reason for planting the 
general early crop more shallow is because the ground is 
cold, wdiich is likely to cause a loss in the seed by rot and a 
delay in coming up if planted as deeply as the later varieties, 
which with an early crop is something to be avoided. With 
the main crop it is different, as the planting is later and the 
soil has had time to warm up, and, having been well pre- 
pared, the planter should be set to drop the seed at least 
three inches deep, even in the heavier clay loams, and four 
inches is better in most soils adapted to potato growing. 
About one-half of the fertilizer should be used in the drill 
at time of planting, or at least up to one-half ton of high- 
grade fertilizer per acre. I do not find it advisable to use 
more than this in the drill, even on the vigorous late varie- 
ties, unless medium-size whole potatoes are being planted. 
In this case as much as one ton of high-grade fertilizer per 
acre can be used in the drill without but little harm resulting 
to the seed, especially if the seed has been well started by 
exposure to the light and sun. 

The main crop varieties, which, as a rule, are of much 
larger growth of vine, need to be planted in rows farther 
apart than the early kinds. The most of them in the State 
of Maine are given from thirty-two to thirty-six inches and 
about fourteen inChes in the row. With some of our best 
late varieties I have been forced to plant as near as twelve 
inches in the row, in order to keep the size down to that 
which the market most demands. This might not be the 
case in many sections where dry weather is likely to cut the 



53 

size (k)\vn more than it is along tlie coast of Maine. 

STAllLE :\IANURE 

Stable manure is but little used in Maine in growing 
potatoes. It has a tendenc}- to cause both scab and rot, 
and should only be used on land intended for potatoes, 
when such land is sadly lacking" in vegetable matter. 

As I have said previously, the potato demands a lot 
of humus in the soil to do its best, and only when it can- 
not be supplied in any other way is it advisable to cover 
the field with stable manure. This, of course, refers to 
applying mamu'c direct)}- preceding the planting of pota- 
toes. 

On the other hand, stable manure seems to add to 
or give more life to soil bacteria that are so essential 
to crop growth. Land that is well supplied with this soil 
bacteria to start with can and will produce great crops 
for years on commercial fertilizers, provided there is 
plowed imder a goodly supply of the clovers, vetch or 
other humus-making material. 

Even if this is done, there is but little doubt that a 
good application of stable manure once every few years 
will give new life to crop productions far in excess of 
the actual plant food it may contain. 

The question with the potato grower is whether or 
not the application of stable manure will not cause a loss 
in cpality as well as making the tubers rough and scaby 
to offset the gain of the few bushels extra yield per acre 
which usually results from its use. The proper time to 
apply it to land that comes in the potato rotation is after 
the potato crop is taken off. In this way, by the time 
potatoes are again planted in the field, there will be but 
little tendency left from its effect to produce either scab, 
rot or a loss in quality. When applied to the newly seeded 
clover after a potato crop, it Avill help greatly to make 
a vigorous perfect stand of clover. This insures a good 
sod to plow under to furnish vegetable matter for the 
next crop of tubers when the rotation comes around to 
potatoes again. 

I have grown as good crop of tubers as I ever grew 
on barn dressing alone, free from scab and rot, and of 
g-ood quality; but this is the exception, and the safer way 
for the potato grower who seeks fine qualitv in his 



S3» -'1 











55 

product is to use this valuable product of the farm in 
growing- some crop other than the potato. 

COMMERCIAL FERTILIZER 

Probably there is no crop grown today, by the North- 
ern farmers, at least, that will give so great a profit one year 
with another, when the plant food to grow it is bought in 
the form of commercial fertilizer, as will the potato. For 
this reason, more than any other, is the potato in the East- 
ern states grown on plant food purchased in the form of 
chemicals or commercial fertilizer. Probably ninety per 
cent, of the potatoes grown in the State of Maine have the 
plant food supplied to the soil in this form. 

There has been a vast deal of discussion as to whether 
a farmer can maintain or increase the productivity of his 
farm by growing crops on commercial fertilizer alonCi 
many claiming that it cannot be done, while others, taking 
no part in the discussion, have gone ahead year after year 
and demonstrated its entire practicability. Many of the first 
users of commercial fertilizer made the mistake of using a 
few hundred pounds per acre in the production of grain. 
This gave good results for a short time and then failed utter- 
ly, even with much heavier applications than at first. The 
reason for this was not generally understood at the time, 
and is not today in far too many cases. 

Commercial fertilizer will not supply any of the bac- 
teria to our soils which are absolutely necessary for a soil to 
be productive. More than this, it does not supply any vege- 
table matter to the soil, which is also absolutely necessary 
for what bacteria there are in the soil to live and thrive. 
There is, I believe, a ground for belief that heavy application 
of the strong potash salts (acidulated phosphate rock) and 
nitrate of soda tends to kill out the bacteria by direct con- 
tact with them in the soil. If heavy applications of these are 
made every year and no stable manure used, or leguminous 
crops turned under to bring a new supply of bacteria to the 
soil, it is only a question of a very few years when the soil, 
being deprived almost entirely of bacteria, will not produce 
a paying crop of anything, regardless of the amount of plant 
food it may contain. In addition to this loss of bacteria 
which the soil will sustain, it loses also in its mechanical 
condition, as well as in its water-holding capacity, becoming 
heavy, inclined to bake after rains and, instead of having a 
moist, lively look, is dry and dead looking. 



56 

The question then arises, Can the farmer, who is so 
situated that it is not advisable for him to keep stock, grow 
potatoes on commercial fertilizer year after year and main- 
tain the productivity of his soil? There is no question but 
what he can (see photo No. 10) ; but if his soil is deficient in 
vegetable matter, and, in that case, of bacteria also, he has 
got a longer, harder road to travel before he gets it back to 
producing maximum crops. If it is well supplied with both 
humus and bacteria to start with, each year will see it pro- 
ducing more and better crops. 

As practically all soils have a great deal of locked-up 
plant food in them, some an immense amount, no matter 
how run-out they seem to be, the increase in productivity 
comes largely from the acids formed by the decomposing 
vegetable matter breaking down and making this available 
for the growing of crops. That the bacteria aids in this 
decomposing of the vegetable matter and the forming of 
these acids, which break down and liberate this locked-up 
mineral plant food, there can be no question. That they 
directly take part in the process is open to doubt. 

One of the chief objects of the potato grower who is 
using commercial fertilizer wholly in growing his crop is to 
get and maintain this vegetable matter in his soil, in order to 
get satisfactory results from the fertilizer applied. The 
amount to be used per acre should not be governed wholly 
by the amount he expects the potato crop he will raise will 
take off . For this reason, the most successful potato grow- 
ers are applying many more pounds of phosphoric acid and 
potash than any crop of tubers they may raise can possibly 
remove. 

There are certain sections where potash seems to be 
needed but little, even in growing potatoes, while phosphoric 
acid is needed in large quantities, although the potato crop 
itself needs but comparatively little phosphoric acid. These 
facts make it impossible for one to give any set rule as to 
the formula another should use in making up or selecting a 
fertilizer for his potato crop. This should be, however, se- 
lected or made up with due consideration as to what the 
crops which are to follow the potato in the rotation will need. 
Probably a 4-6-10 formula is more largely used by the 
Maine potato growers than any other combination. I refer 
to this not as a guide for the grower in other states to fol- 
low, but to the fact that there is no section of the country 
where run-out, abandoned farms are now being brought up 



57 

to a state of productix ity so rapidly as they arc in Maine. 
This shows that this formula is not only giving the Maine 
farmer the largest yield of potatoes per acre of any state in 
the Union, hut is adapted to his general rotation as well. 
That the phosphoric acid and potash can be varied to suit 
different sections and given even better results than the 
majority are now getting seems probable. But for a general 
formula a 4-6-10 will }M-obably suit as many different soils 
as any, where the land is to be put into a rotation, including 
potatoes, and its productivity increased. However, a 4-6-10 
fertilizer usually carried quite an amount of what is known 
as filler, which the purchaser has to pay freight on, as well 
as handle, and it is far better and cheaper to buy a 4-8-10 
fertilizer, as there can be but very little in a fertilizer of this 
high analysis. 

The amount of plant food removed from the soil in a 
crop of three hundred bushels of potatoes is, according to 
the best authorities, about 58 pounds of nitrogen, 27 pounds 
of phosphoric acid and 80 pounds of potash. As heat and 
cold, dry or wet weather affects the availability of the plant 
food in a fertilizer, we have to apply much more potash and 
phosphoric acid than a crop will take oft", in order to have 
what the crop needs available at the time the crop most 
needs it, if a maximum yield is to be obtained. 

The larger part of the best farmers not only in Maine, 
but in most other sections where potato growing on com- 
mercial fertilizer is made a business, use a ton per acre of a 
fertilizer of a 4-6-10 analysis. This means that they are 
applying 200 pounds of potash, 120 pounds of phosphoric 
acid and 66 pounds of actual nitrogen. With a crop of three 
hundred bushels per acre, there are left in the soil 120 pounds 
of potash, 93 pounds of phosphoric acid and 8 pounds of 
nitrogen. Nitrogen is the most elusive element we have in 
our fertilizer, and it is not economy to apply much more in 
any one season than the crop Vv^e expect to grow that season 
will use. The margin between what a crop of this size 
would take oft" in nitrogen and the amount we have applied 
in the ton of fertilizer is so narrow that if the crop depended 
altogether for its nitrogen on what we applied in this way, 
its growth would suft"er. This would be especially true in dry 
seasons. As potatoes should always be planted on land con- 
taining more or less decaying organic matter, nitrification is 
going on, furnishing enough a\ailable nitrogen to make up 
all that the crop will need to do its Ijcst. 



58 

The office of nitrogen to the plant is to promote vine 
growth, and an abundance of this element causes a heavy, 
dark green growth of leaves and vines, and in case of a fer- 
tilizer not well balanced up with phosphoric acid and potash 
might, and in most cases will, produce much vine growth, 
with few and small tubers. If either element was to be 
lacking, it had better be nitrogen, especially towards the last 
of the season. On the other hand, plenty of available nitro- 
gen early in the season, to promote vigorous growth of vines 
to cover the ground and prevent evaporation of moisture 
and check the germination of weed seed, usually results in a 
good crop. Potash and phosphoric acid promotes and de- 
velops the formation of tubers, which takes place later in the 
season, the tubers growing until the vines are entirely dead. 
The vast importance of ready-mixed fertilizer to the 
potato growers of Maine, and the unquestionable fact that 
the farmers, especially the potato growers of the Central 
Western states, have got to begin their use in a very few 
years, makes the question of how and what to buy of great 
interest. The plowing under of clover and the use of barn 
dressing has been practically all the fertilization given the 
potato in many sections where they have been largely grown. 
This form of fertilization is unbalanced, for there is but lit- 
tle phosphoric acid and potash returned to the soil in the 
barn dressing, especially where the liquid part of it is allow- 
ed to drain away, as it is on so many farms. 

There certainly will come a time when phosphoric 
acid and potash will have to be applied, or the growing of 
potatoes will become a failure. This failure will show 
fully as much in the quality of the crops growm as in 
the quantity, as the tubers will grow rough and scraggy 
in appearance and be more often afflicted with scab. This 
condition can be almost entirely overcome by good seed, 
a proper handling of the soil and the intelligent use of a 
properly made commercial fertilizer. I presume the 
knowledge the Maine potato growers have of commercial 
fertilizer has cost them millions of dollars, and it is pretty 
safe tO' say that any section just beginning their use will 
pay a like penalty. In the first place, no farmer, if he 
needs a complete fertilizer and wants to get his money's 
worth, should buy a cheaper grade for any crop than a 
4-8-10. It is also true that in a section just beginning to 
use commercial fertilizers that a grade as high as a 4-8-10 
is scarcely sold at all or even heard of. Now, to make a 



59 

fertilizer of the above grade, it will take of the very best 
concentrated materials that can be bought some 1920 
lbs., leaving only a chance for 80 lbs. of filler. The farm- 
er thinks this high at $42.00 per ton, and in many cases 
will turn around and buy a 2-4-5 and pay $25.00 per ton 
and think he is getting a bargain. The facts are, he is 
only getting just half of the amount of plant food he 
would in a ton of 4-8-10. In other words, he would have 
to buy 2 tons of the 2-4-5 to get as much plant food as 
he would get in one ton of the 4-8-10, costing him 
350.00 instead of $42.00, or eight dollars more. 
It this was all of the extfa cost, it would not seem so bad. 
but he has got to draw and handle that extra ton of weight, 
which means, if he is some miles from the railroad, several 
<lollars more. 

There arc practically only three things that a farmer 
wishes to buy when buying commercial fertilizers ; these are 
nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, and it is well to look 
.at the sources from which these come. Taking nitrogen 
first, there is nitrate of soda, which is a salt mined from the 
•Chilean nitrate beds ; meat tankage, dried blood, sulphate of 
ammonia and cottonseed meal. These are all good forms. 
Then we have other and more inferior sources, like ground 
leather scrap, wool waste, hoof and horn meal, and some 
■others which it is not necessary to mention. 

The user of fertilizer should remember this one thing, 
that no plant can take up its food, whether furnished by 
barn manure or fertilizers, only when that food is in solu- 
tion. It has got to be dissolved in w^ater before it can by any 
])0ssible means be taken up by the plant roots and used to 
i)uild root or stock growth. 

Nitrate of soda is the most quickly available of any 
form of nitrogen. Just as soon as it comes in contact Avith 
damp soil it begins to dissolve, and as soon as dissolved it is 
ready to be used by any crop. For this reason, it is not best 
to have any of the nitrogen content of a fertilizer in the 
form of nitrate of soda when any of the fertilizer is to be 
applied either before or at the time of planting potatoes. 
Every potato grower knows that it is from two to five weeks 
after planting potatoes l)efore there is any root system to 
take up free nitrogen. Therefore, if any of the nitrogen 
content of the planting brands of fertilizers is in the form of 
nitrate of soda, the potato grower stands a fine chance of 
losing a part of this high-priced element of his fertilizer by 



60 

having it washed from his soil by rains long before the po- 
tato plants can get any root growth to feed upon it. 

Nitrate of soda is all right to use in a potato fertihzer 
for a part (not over one-half) of the nitrogen content for 
the hoeing or top-dressing brand, as this will be if properly 
used, applied after the plants have broken ground and got 
more or less of a root system. 

The next quickest availaljle form in which we can buy 
nitrogen is dried blood. This, being organic matter, must 
decompose or rot in the soil before any of the nitrogen 
which it contains can become water soluble or available for 
plant food. This decomposing or rotting will not take place 
to any appreciable extent until the soil temperature reaches 
or goes above fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Thus it is per- 
fectly safe to have at least a part of the nitrogen content of 
the planting brand of a potato fertilizer in the form of dried 
blood. 

Sulphate of ammonia would come next in availability, 
and while some claim that it is not as good as the organic 
forms of nitrogen, a certain portion mixed in works all right 
in the planting brand. 

Meat tankage, especially the best grades, where they 
contain a certain amount of finely ground bone, are a fine 
source for a large part of the nitrogen content of either 
brand. For here, as in dried blood, decomposition must take 
place before the nitrogen can become available, and with a 
percentage of the tankage ground bone, which takes much 
longer to rot, there will be nitrogen becoming available all 
through the crop-growing season. This is of more impor- 
tance than a great many give it, as a potato crop needs some 
nitrogen, even in the later part of the season, if we are to 
feed it so as to have it do its best. 

Ground leather scrap, w'ool waste, hoof and horn meal, 
while they are sources from which nitrogen can be obtained 
by the commercial fertilizer manufacturer to make a good 
analysis, are but little, if any, good to the potato grower. 
Take, for instance, ground leather ; wdiile it gives a very 
good nitrogen analysis, something like seven to eight per 
cent., practically none of it would become available for any 
crop. Probably there is not any of our soils which were 
once good, no matter how worn out and unproductive they 
may seem at present, but what contain nitrogen enough to 
produce many maximum crops were it available. What, 
then, is the use of any farmer or potato grower to buy fer- 



61 

tilizcr llial has any \k\v\. ui its nilro_«j;cn in ihcsc una\ailablc 
forms, like i^round leather? 'i"hc (.■hcniist in his laboratory 
with his powerftil acids can lind and determine the amount 
of nitrogen they contain and make a good showing on the 
fertilizer bag; but the plants, working in their soil labora- 
tory, are unable to break down and liberate it for their use, 
and it is of no more use to them than any of that other 
locked-up nitrogen which even many of our poorest soils 
contain. 

The nitrogen analysis on the fertilizer bag does not tell 
the whole story, because it does not ditYerentiate between 
the plant food sources of nitrogen from those for analysis 
only. For this reason, a fertilizer manufacturer can give as 
high an analysis as a 4-8-10 goods, and by using these in- 
soluble and unavailable forms of nitrogen make a saving in 
cost to him of between five and seven dollars per ton. Thus 
the honest fertilizer manufacturer, who is putting out goods 
containing actual plant food nitrogen, has got to face the 
competition of those less scrupulous, who use the insolul)lc 
forms, at many dollars less cost per ton to manufacture, but 
who are allowed liy laws in many states to have the same 
guaranteed analysis on the bags. 

There must be in the near future either a change in the 
fertilizer laws of the several states or the user will have to 
depend upon men whom he knows to be personally honest to 
make up fertilizer for him. This has been the experience of 



L. 




rO 








T I 






_ J- 


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1 


f 


4^^^ ^^k 




^Bl " II M^^'JIfT — 


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wL 



Plioto No. 11. Showing the works of the Union Chemical Co., North Wales, Pa. — the home of the 
Ideal Potato Manure — planting and top dressinK brands — two brands with the same analysis, 
but different in the nitrogen contents — tJie only brand made to meet the rfquiremenis of the 
Etowing potato in a conservative, scientific manner. 



62 

the writer, who, knowing the market prices of the highest 
grades of chemicals, has gone to an independent fertiUzer 
company and had what fertilizer he and his associates need- 
ed made up out of honest materials, and paid an honest price 
for them, regardless of the fact that he could buy the same 
analysis of many manufacturers at a saving of about $8.00 
per ton, but who do not, and will not, state the sources from 
which the different plant food elements are taken. 

Again, most fertilizer manufacturers have but one 
brand ; that is, they do not differentiate between what they 
expect the potato grower to use when he plants his crop and 
what he should use later on, when the potatoes have broken 
ground and have a root system. Therefore, many of them 
use nitrate of soda as part of their nitrogen content, which 
would be all right for crops which quickly form a root sys- 
tem, but which may and many times does cause a loss to the 
potato growers, as I have above pointed out. This loss 
would be greater on sandy soil or any soil underlaid with a 
loose or porous subsoil. 

The most practical way is to have the potato ferti- 
lizer in two brands, both a 4-8-10, but with no nitrate of 
soda in the planting brand, but in the hoeing or top- 
dressing brand, which is to be applied after the vines break 
ground. Quite a percentage of the nitrogen should be in 
the form of nitrate of soda. There is one independent 
fertilizer company, the Union Chemical Works, of North 
Wales, Pa., which is today putting out a potato fertilizer 
made up in these two brands. As far as the writer's 
knowledge goes, they are the only manufacturers of ferti- 
lizers in the country who have recognized that there is as 
much science in feeding food to plants as there is in feed- 
ing livestock. Mr. Warren Fretz, of Bedminster, Pa., who 
has probably done more to build up the potato-growing 
industry of Pennsylvania in the last few years than any 
other man, after carefully going over this matter several 
years ago with the writer, originated and had brought out 
the two brands made by the above company, and known 
as the Ideal Potato brands. Both of the same analysis, 
but differing in the make-up of the nitrogen content. 
Photo No. 11 shows a view of their factory. These brands, 
rightly used, have given some of the best yields obtain- 
able, both in Maine and Pennsylvania, for several years. 

There is quite a fad in some sections among potato 
growers to buy chemicals and mix their own fertilizer, some 



63 

claiming a great saving in cost. Tiiosc making this claim 
are almost invariably those who have been buying the cheap- 
er brands of fertilizer, and paying much more for them than 
the analysis would warrant. Again, home-mixed goods of 
the same analysis seldom give as good results in the field as 
do those mixed by the manufacturer. For instance, the 
farmer bu}ing chemicals in comparatively small amounts 
seldom gets his material in as many different forms as the 
manufacturer has at hand. In the case of nitrogen, for an ex- 
ample, the grower who buys chemicals seldom gets his nitro- 
gen from but two sources, usually nitrate of soda and tank- 
age, while the fertilizer manufacturer, having other sources 
readily at hand, makes up part of the nitrogen content out of 
these, thereby coming nnich nearer to giving the growing 
crop a steady, moderate supply the season through. Then, 
again, a well-eciuipped factory will get the materials better 
mixed and in a more even manner than the home mixer. 
The home-mixing fad seldom lives but a few years in a 
place, and it is safe to say that the percentage of home- 
mixed fertilizer used by the potato growers of Maine is so 
small as to hardly be reckoned with. Maine, more than any 
other state, grows its potatoes on commercial fertilizer, and 
had there been any great saving in home mixing the Maine 
potato grower would have been at the fore in the home- 
mixing idea years ago. The safest way is to get the high- 
grade fertilizer, buying of reliable firms. 

CULTIVATION 

Many farmers have an idea that cultivation begins after 
the crop is planted. My way of thinking, this is not so. 
Cultivation of the crop begins as soon as the soil prepara- 
tion starts, and if the soil has been prepared as I have 
described under "Preparing Land for Potatoes," cultivation 
is half done before the potatoes are planted. 

There is no way in which the soil directly under the 
rows can be fined and loosened after tlie potatoes are once 
planted, hence, if this is not done before planting, it can- 
not be done at all, and of all the soil in a potato field, there 
is none which should be in better shape for crop growth 
than that directly under the rows. 

After planting there should be at least two deep culti- 
vations. A two-horse doul)le cultivator will do deeper and 
better work and more of it in the same time and get up near- 



64 

er to the rows without disturbing the seed than can be done 
with a single-horse cuhivator. As soon as a field is planted 
with the planter the cultivator should be started, lunnu;;^ 
it as deep and as near the rows as is safe to do without 
disturbing the seed. The wheels of the planter will have 
packed down the soil between the rows, and this cultiva- 
tion will loosen it up, allowing heat and air to better pene- 
trate it. As soon as this cultivation is finished the weeder, 
brush-harrow or plank drag, should be used to work the 
ridges the planter left over the rows down level. This 




Photo No. 12. Showing a properly fertilized field of potatoes — photo taken Julv S, l')12. Photo 
No. 13 shows the same field ten days later. Field of Dr. G. M. Twitchell. 



extra soil over the rows prevents the air and heat reaching 
the seed and is of no value to it. On the contrary, it will 
retard the starting of the sprouts, and in case of rains 
may seriously injure them, causing a weak, spindling 
growth. We do not want anv more soil over our seed than 



65 

we are obliged to have until the plants are well out of the 
ground, especially when we are planting from three to 
four inches deep after the ground is smoothed down level. 
For this reason the ridges over the rows as left by the 
planter should be left after planting only long enough to 
guide us in our first dee]) cultivation. This should be done 
as quickly as possible after i)lanting. 

The field should be gone over every few days with 
the weeder, until the sprouts get near enough to the sur- 
face so that some are broken off, then its use should be 
discontiiuied until the vines are well enough established 
so that the weeder will break oft" but few, if any. Many 
continue the use of the weeder regardless of this breaking 
oft' of many of the sprouts, and perhaps in a hot, dry time 
the use of the weeder will do the balance as much good 
as the harm it has done to those it has broken oft". One 
of my fixed rules is never to run my cultivator so as to 
break or cut oft" any portion of the root system ; or to 
break oft" a sprout with the weeder or any other implement 
where I want a plant. If the seed piece has vitality enough 
to send up another sprout, it is weaker and later in ma- 
turing, and in case of early potatoes, a practical loss. 

\\'hen the potatoes are well up, so that the rows can 
be plainly seen, give them the second deep cultivation, 
running the cultivator well up near the rows, but being 
careful not to run near enough to cut oft" any portion of 
the root system. This will kill all the weeds between the 
rows, but there will be many along the rows which we 
cannot get with the cultivator. The plants are now ready 
to receive the second application of fertilizer. If the 
nitrogen in this second application can be largely in the 
form of nitrate of soda, as the plants now have a root 
system in a condition to take it up, it will force a very 
rapid growth. (See Photos Nos. 12 and 13.) For apply- 
ing this second application of fertilizer the planter can be 
used by taking off both plows, but leaving on the fertilizer 
attachment and the disk covers. We can now drive right 
over the rows, drilling the fertilizer right along, and with 
the disk coverers burying the fertilizer, weeds and pota- 
toes. If the potatoes have come up stocky and strong, 
they will push right up through this loose soil with which 
we have buried them up. All little weeds will be killed by 
this process. (See Fig. 14.) 

The disk coverers should be set wide enough apart 



66 



to make a broad, low hill or ridge, throwing some three 
inches of soil around and over the plants and fertilizer 
which we have drilled along the row. The vines will at 
once send out one or two new sets of roots above this 





^M 




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H 






;_^..--_,.;r-'''.J^ 


' '^^l-* ■ 






photo No. 13. Showing the marvelous growth of potato vines in ten days time when 
properly fertilized and protected from insect injury. Photo taken July 18, 1912 on field 
of Dr. G. M. Twitchell, Monmouth, Maine. 



fertilizer; in a very few days the earth around this fer- 
tilizer will be found literally full of new white feeding 
roots which the plants have sent out. 

This burying process is, as far as I am able to learn, 
a distinct Maine practice. I am not in favor of extreme 
ridge or hill culture, but have never been able to get as 
large crops and of as good tubers unless hilled moderately. 
With this method, there is little, if any, root pruning, 
which I believe to be, one year with another, one of the 
worst practices a potato grower can indulge in. It is far 



67 

better to make two applications of our fertilizer, and it is 
a waste of nitrogen in the fertilizer to apply a portion of 
it broadcast before jilanting if any portion of the nitrogen 
is in the form of nitrate of soda. There is no way so 
economical of labor and time as this method of applying. 
Both the fertilizer and burying can be, and is done, with 
one driving over the field. This burying of potatoes, 
especially early varieties, should be done when they are 
just well up, so that the rows show plainly. On the 
later and more vigorous varieties it can be done without 
injury even when they are from four to six inches high. 
(See Fig. 14) Many of the plants on this field were six 
inches or more high, and as the field contained more or 
less witch-grass and many small weeds, the potatoes were 
buried from four to six inches. This method kills out all 
the weeds and grass and causes the potato to send out 
new root growth. The plants will force right up through 
this covering in about two days' time. Time required is 
about one and one-half hours' work per acre. Figure 15 
shows the same field at the last spraying, September 16, 
1909. On early kinds, burying when too large hurts their 
growth, especially if covered too deeply; for this reason, on 
€aily varieties it is advisable to so adjust the machine that 
they will not be entirely buried unless the weeds have got 
a bad start, when everything should be covered out of 
sight and deep enough to kill all weeds. The grow^th of 
weeds or the cost of hand labor to remove them would be 
more than the probable damage done the potato vines by 
Ijurying them ; much depends on whether the potatoes have 
come up strong and stocky; if weak and spindling, they 
will not stand so deep covering without injury. Vigorous, 
stocky plants will shove right up through several inches of 
loose soil and in about two days' time. If some of the 
fertilizer falls on the leaves, no particular harm will be 
done ; the plants shove up through by making new growth 
from the centre, and all leaf growth covered remains buried 
and performs no further leaf functions to the plant. 

There are two advantages right here, as any eggs 
of the potato beetle which have been laid on the little 
plants previous to this burying will be destroyed. In 
some cases these will be the greater portion laid on the 
field during the season. Another is the fact that the 
plamts will send out a new set of roots from each joint 
of stalk which is below the surface of the soil we have 











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— C : 
_ : 
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O 3 
O u 



69 

thrown up around them; this enlarges the root system. 
The application of fertilizer at this time, and placing it 
where the plant can immediately feed upon it, more 
than offsets any temporary check any good vigorous 
stalk will sustain when small by covering it with loose 
soil, even to the depth of several inches. The culli valor 
should be run ihniui^h l)et\veen tlic rcnvs ininiediately after 
this burying of the plants to loosen up the soil between the 
rows and prevent evaporation of moisture. If little weeds 
spring up along the rows again, a second hilling is some- 
times advisable. Only enough soil should be thrown up atvl 
around the plants at this time to smother the weeds and to 
form a dust mulch ; usually it is not advisable to make this 
second covering. The grower should be governed by 
weather conditions and the growth of weeds in making this 
second hilling ; it must always remain largely a matter of 
indi\idual judgment. 

The last working of the field should be with the culti- 
vator narrowed up so as not to tear down our ridges and 
run very shallow, just enough to form the dust mulch be- 
tween the rows. This system of cultivation might not be 
applicable to many sections where dry weather is the rule 
every summer. In the worst drouth we have had for years 
here in Maine it has given fully as large crops as any sys- 
tem of level culture where the cultivator is run very close 
to the rows when the vines are from six inches to a foot in 
height. This is many times done when the teeth of the 
cultivator are loaded with the feeding roots of the potato 
at the end of every furrow ; this is root pruning and de- 
prives the plants of just so much feeding capacity. Willi 
the soil thrown up around them, if done when and as it 
should be, there will be no root pruning. On the contrary, 
there will be thrown out from the stalks many more roots, 
greatly increasing the plants moisture-gathering capacity 
and more than offsetting any saving in moisture there might 
come from level cultivation. Each grower will have to 
figure this out for himself and for his own particular soil 
and climate. My province is to set down the facts as far 
as my experience and knowledge goes and not to 
argue for either the level or ridge system of cultivation. 
Potatoes grown in the ridge system are more easily dug 
than with level culture, and in a wet season are not so 
likely to rot. There are less sunburned tubers, and a mod- 
erate ridge system of cultivation would seem, one year with 



70 

another, to have more advantages than either level or ex- 
treme ridge culture. 

INSECTICIDES 

In treating of insecticides, I shall take them up under 
three divisions, viz: Paris Green, Arsenate of Lead and. 
Bug Death, setting down in an impartial manner the ob- 
jections and liimtations of each, giving those not familiar 
with them a chance to decide for themselves. 

The use of the deadly arsenical poisons hats grown 
to such proportions that thoughtful men may well pause 
and ask whether or not there will come a time when the 
soil itself will become so impregnated with arsenic as to 
kill all vegetation. 

A few years ago any one advancing such an idea 
found himself ridiculed by many of the State Ex. Sta- 
tions, the Stations claiming that the arsenic was, for the 
most part, insoluble, and that there could be no danger 
from this source. 

I have only to cite the Orchards of Colorado to prove 
how wrong was the advice given to the farmers of this 
country by so many of the Ex. Stations. The loss to the 
orchardist of Colorado alone will already run into the 
millions, for there is hardly an orchard in the state fifteen 
years old which has not suffered severe loss by trees 
dying from arsenical poisoning. Tens of thousands of 
trees have already died, and whole orchards are rapidly 
becoming worthless, simply and wdiolly from the arsenic 
which has been sprayed upon them to kill insects. What 
condition the soil will be in to produce other crops after 
these orchards are entirely gone no man can tell for a 
surety. That it may become actually worthless for crop 
production of any kind is the opinion of many, and this 
seems plausible. The insolubility of the arsenical poisons 
in any soil has been proved a myth, not by the Ex. Sta- 
tions, which advocated their use, but by the orchardist 
and farmer in his field work. No more severe indictment 
of many of our so-called scientific men could have been 
conceived than is shown by these dead and dying orchards 
of Colorado and their ruined owners. That the potato 
grower who uses arsenical poisons to fight the insects 
on his vines may and will come to the same condition is 
only a matter of time ; but in the case of the potato there 




V"-' ^^ '"' •' •■ :'''^ ' ' 



•?■.-' fi 



72 

is a far more insidious danger, which I have described 
under the causes of the running out of the potato. Al- 
ready this has done untold damage to the vitality of the 
potatoes East of the Rocky Mountains. 

Here is another severe arraignment of the Ex. Sta- 
tions. For the last fifteen years they have known that 
it was not necessary that these deadly poisons be used 
for this purpose, yet I have to learn of the first instance 
where they have come out openl}- and told the potato 
grower the truth. Fifteen years ago there was a concern 
in Massachusetts which started making the insecticide, 
called Bug Death, which contains no arsenic. They care- 
fully tried this out on every garden plant, and found 
that used in liberal quantities it was equally as effective 
as any arsenical poison, and containing no arsenic it was 
harmless to any plant or animal. They then submitted it 
to the Ex. Stations of several of the New England states 
for trial, thinking that the Stations would gladly welcome 
the use among the farmers of any material which would 
make it unnecessary to use the deadly arsenical poisons. 
To their intense surprise they were met by ridicule. A 
notable instance of this was when the Director of the 
Maine Ex. Station devoted nearly nine pages of a bulletin 
issued at that time for this purpose.. Not in a single 
instance did the manufacturers have an oft'er of co-opera- 
tion from any Ex. Station ; neither was there the slightest 
disposition on the part of any of the Ex. Stations to off'er 
their services to the manufacturers to the end that a bet- 
ter insectide might be obtained than what was first brought 
out. 

If there has been any eft"ort made b}^ any Ex. Station 
in the country along the line of getting any insecticide 
which will kill insects, and not in any manner injure 
the plants, the author has never heard of it. On the 
other hand, every effort has been made by the Stations 
to block the sale and retard the use of such when put 
upon the market. I know of but two states in the coun- 
try where an institute speaker dares to speak favorably 
of Bug Death for killing insects without danger of losing his 
job on the force. These states are Maine and Pennsylvania, 
and what is more significant, and what gives a sinister look 
to this whole opposition, is the fact that in these two states 
the Farmers' Institutes are not to any degree under the in- 
fluence of the Ex. Stations. 



73 

I have a personal knowlodi^e of a case where the 
director of Institutes frankly tokl the sj^caker that he had 
done the best work of any man he had every employed along 
the speaker's particular line, yet, because he answered 
some questions from the audience favorable to the use of 
Bug Death for combatting insects, that speaker was dropped 
from the force, and to this day has never been called back 
to that state. More than this, the Station knowing the stand- 
ing of this speaker on this subject, insisted that the Institute 
director allow them to have a man from the station on tiie 
force to spy upon him, and report to the Station his re- 
marks, and that the question which he answered which re- 
sulted so disastrously for him as an Institute speaker in that 
state was instigated by the Station's spies. 

The author was talking potato culture to a New 
Hampshire audience several years ago, and had spoken 
favorably of Bug Death as a means of fighting potato-eat- 
ing insects when he was interrupted by Prof. E. Dwight 
Sanderson, of the New Haonpshire College, an Ex. Station, 
who demanded to know why, if what he said was true, 
Woods, of the Maine Station, had made such an unfavor- 
able report on it. My reply was that if Woods had made 
any such report as he had without knowing whether or not 
he was right, it did him no credit, if he had made the re- 
port which he had sent out knowing that it was false, it 
looked black for Woods, and in either case it did the Sta- 
tion no credit. A lively discussion followed, and so many 
people supported my position by reciting their own experi- 
ence, which tallied with my own, that the Professor saw 
that he would be entirely discredited if it went on. He again 
took the floor and acknowledged that as far as potatoes 
were concerned he had no personal knowledge of what the 
material would do on potatoes, but had simply taken the 
Woods report from Maine, amd to save himself from being 
utterly discredited for attacking the speaker on a subject 
he had to acknowledge he knew nothing about, he made 
this surprising statement, that as far as potatoes were con- 
cerned he knew nothing of its value, but he would say that 
for the striped squash and cucumber bug that it was the 
best and only thing he had ever found that he could suc- 
cessfully combat this pest with. By acknowledging that 
when used for this purpose it afforded complete protection 
against these pests he saved his self-respect before that 
audience. 



74 

" Here was a man who every farmer and every con- 
sumer was helping to support; also the Institution of 
which he was a part, and neither he nor the Station has 
ever, to the writer's knowledge, made public to the peo- 
ple this knowledge, which is worth thousands of dollars 
to New Hampshire alone. This is a typical case. The 
farmers and consumers of this country are taxed to sup- 
port the Ex. Stations, and yet knowledge which is vital 
to the production of crops is withheld, because it did not 
originate with the Stations themselves, and does conflict 
with some of their preconceived theories. I do not mean 
to charge this to be true of all the Ex. Stations. There 
are some who deal plainly with this matter, and I advise 
any of my readers to write to William P. Headden, of 
the Colorado Ex. Station, Fort Collins, Colorado, asking 
for his bulletin No. 131, printed in July, 1908, and No. 
157, printed in May, 1910, on arsenical poisoning of fruit 
trees. These should be read by every orchardist in the 
country. 

With a few exceptions like the above, if my readers 
doubt the influence that the Ex. Stations have over the 
speakers at Farmers' Institutes, let them closely follow 
any speaker in any state where the Farmers' Institutes 
are connected with the Ex. Stations, and see if the 
speakers are not continually praising the Stations 
and urging the farmers to insist that their legislatures 
appropriate more money to them. Note, also, in far too 
many cases the type of men employed as speakers. Are 
they men who have made a success of farming in any 
of its branches? No, they are men who work the farmers 
to get them to vote more money to the Stations, and the 
actual problems of the farmers are a side issue. 

Now that they have led the orchardist of Colorado 
to the point where the loss to the state runs into the 
millions, if it has not entirely ruined for generations to 
come large tracts of the best agricultural land in the 
state, will we see any halt along this line of booming 
arsenical poisons on the part of the Ex. Stations in states 
not yet affected. 

To answer that question we will have to inquire as 
to the ownership of the arsenic mines in this country. 

It is very little use to lock the stable door after the 
horse is stolen, and what good will it do the potato 
gfrower to inform him a few vears hence that he has 



75 

ruined his holds by tlie use of arsenical poisons? lie will 
know that then without being- told. The proper mission 
for the Ex. Stations is to inform him now of means to 
fight his insect pests without any danger of poisoning^ 
his soil, and a further and more insidious danger in the 
case of the potato of weakening its producing powers by 
sapping its vitality year after year. Right here I know 
of no way that I can bring these facts more forcefully 
to my readers' attention than by quoting from the above- 
mentioned bulletins. 

I deem this question of arsenical poisoning to be 
one of the most important that confronts the agriculture 
of our country today, and that the Colorado Station 
should have the thanks of the whole country for the work 
it has done through William P. Headden. The Colorado 
bulletins on this subject, Nos. 131 and 157, are so val- 
uable that I would like to quote them entire, but space 
forbids, and I will ha\e to content myself with the fol- 
lowing extracts: "The number of trees affected. * * * 
One man stated that in the last fezv years he had lost 50 per 
cent of his Ben Davis. * * * * / z'isited one orchard 
in which there zvas a large number of affected trees; in other 
orchards there are only a fezv. The total number of af- 
fected trees in the orchards of the Western Slope is already, 
unfortunately, large. I have already clearly indicated my 
conviction that the cause of the trouble is arsenical poison- 
ing; that there are some trees suffering from other causes 
is quite certain, but the cause of the greater portion of the 
trouble is the arsenic, which has acculated in the soil. The 
expression of this conviction is not a hasty one, for I am 
fully alive to Jiow much it means to this state and all other 
orchard-growing states, where similar soil conditions prevail, 
but it is for the best interests of orchardists that they should 
know the facts pertaining to the death of their trees and the 
co)idifions of their soil." 

"The Accumulation of Arsenic in the Soil." — The num- 
ber of sprayings applied varies from tzvo or three to nine 
during the season. * "' * * The amount of lead 
arsenate used is from four to six pounds to each 100 gallons 
of water. The average orchardist does not consider the 
amount of arsenic thus applied to a single tree a very large 
quantity. * * * * Practically the zchole of this 
eventually finds its zvay into the soil. * * * * It is 
not done one year only, but every year, * * * * so 



76 

tliat zvc xvonld expect to find a considerable accnmnlation of 
arsenic in the soil, especially in the soil at the base of the 
trees. This corresponds to the facts as found by analysis. In 
one sainple taken be neat Ji tJie head of a tzv civ e-y ear-old apple 
tree, and representing the soil to the depth of five inches, I 
found arsenic corresponding to 30.6 parts of arsenic acid to 
each million parts of the soil. * * * We find, in 
fact, zvhat zvas front the beginning patent; namely, that the 
arsenic does accumulate, and is already present in our or- 
chards in dangerous quantities, if it, by any means, should 
become soluble. 

"The Arsenic Is Taken Up by the Trees."- — It is alto- 
gether correct that the spray material applied is a compound 
of arsenic, either difficulty soluble or insoluble in zvater, as 
calcic arsenite or lead arsenate. It is also true that literally 
hundreds of trees have already died or are sick, as, I believe, 
beyond hope of recovery. * * ''■ * We have seen that 
the arsenic is accumulating in the soil, having already 
reached as large an amount as 66.33 parts of arsenic acid in 
a million of soil. * * * * Further, zve have sJiozvn 
that in these dying trees arsenic is present in the roots, the 
trunk and branches varying up to 12.77 parts per million. 
* * * * / have stated my conviction that many trees 
have been killed by arsenic, and that others are hopelessly 
sick. I zvill give some reasons for my belief. First, it is a 
zvell-knozvn fact that soluble arsenical compounds zvill kill 
plants. It has been found that Herbicide, a preparation 
found on the market, is essentially a solution of an arsenical 
compound. Both zvhite arsenic and arsenic acid have been 
shozvn by various experiments to be deleterious even zvhcn 
present in very small quantities, one part per million in 
solution. 

"Second. I took some green Jiouse plants, coleuscs, 
daisies and geraniums in tzvo and a quarter and tliree inch 
pots, and added from 0.05 to 0.5 grams, approximately from 
3-U of a grain to 7.5 grains, of sodic arsenite, and the 
smallest amount used sufficed to kill the plants. 

"Third. I knozv of tzvo trees, one killed outright, 
'■' * * * and the other partially killed. It zvas my good 
fortune to see this tree zvhcn the affected limb zvas still on 
the tree zvith the dead and blackened leaves clinging to it. 
Inquiry elicited the statement that it had been killed by ar- 
senic, as the other free Jiad. In the case of the tree that had 
died, they had made arsenite of lime under it or near it, and 



77 

//(/(/ probably spilled the arsciiitc of soda. In the case of the 
tree, one limb of "ichieh Zs^'os dead, they had been more care- 
ful tcitli their sodic arsoiite. Having some left over, they 
determined to get rid of it, and emptied it into the irrigating 
ditch near the tree. This ivas one day in June. Two days 
later the limb zi'as sick. I sazv it in October zvhen the limb 
z\.'as dead and had the appearance of having been dead for 
some time. * '^' '" * / measured the distance from the 
trunk of the tree to the irrigating ditch, * ''' * * and 
found it to be 12 feet. An examination of this tree shoived 
that a section of the bark from the base of the trunk up into 
the big limb was brown, sunken and in appearance like the 
bark in the trunks of affected trees. The zvood beneath this 
bark zvas dead and colored brozvn. * * ^^ * fhe con- 
dition bclozv the surface of the ground zvas even still more 
striking, or the bark zvas destroyed and the little that re- 
mained zi'as very dark, in places black. We dug out this root, 
follozving it to the irrigating ditch, to the point zvhere the 
sodic arsenite had been emptied. * * * * The killing 
of the bark and zvoody tissue zvas in this zvay traced from 
the point at zvhich the sodic arsenite zvas introduced into the 
ditch through the snmll roots into the large one, thence into 
the tru>ik, the limb and even into the branches. The course 
zvas direct, and the flozv of the poisonous solution zvas con- 
fined to a comparatively narrozv channel. * * * * ]y(, 
have not simply assumed that the placing of sodic arsenite 
in the ditch and the dying of this branch of the tree tzvo days 
later are zvholly conclusive as to the cause of death. I have 
examined the zvood of the branches and the root, and find 
an abundance of arsenic in both. In this case I recovered 
the largest amount of arsenic found in any sample, 
***'*' corresponding to 3^.5 parts of arsenic acid in 
one million parts of the tissue. The other portions of this tree 
were apparently in good condition zvhen I last sazv it. 
* * * * / have given tJiis case in some detail, because I 
believe it to be as conclusive proof as can possibly be ad- 
duced that soluble arsenic compounds not only produce death 
zvhen introduced into the circulation of the apple tree, but 
zvill produce the effects zvhich zve find preceding the death of 
our apple and pear trees. In both cases zve have the killing of 
the bark, the staining and destruction of the tissue and the 
killing of the trees. * * * * / ji^ve nozv given the rea- 
sons for my conviction that the arsenic zvhich has accumu- 
lated in our soil from the use of arsenical sprays used in 



78 

combatting the codling moth and other fruit, leaf and bark- 
eating insects is the cause of this trouble. To restate them 
succinctly, zve find the arsenic already accumulated in the 
soil to an extent far beyond the danger line for solutions as^ 
established by competent experimenters. We find it also in 
the tissues of the plant, where it is not normally present. We 
have proved both in the ease of herbaceous and zvoody plants 
that soluble arsenical compounds ivill cause their death. I 
regret that I can see no other conclusion than that the cor- 
roding of the crozvns, the killing of the bark, the staining 
and final destruction of the zvoody fiber, the early dropping 
of the leaves presaging the early death of the tree and its 
final death a fezv months later are caused by arsenical 
poisoning." 

All of the above quotations have been taken front 
Bulletin No. 131, dated July, 1908. I w^ill now quote 
from Bulletin No. 157, May, 1910: 

'"/ gave in Bulletin 131 a definite experience zvith a case 
in zvhich it zvas charged that arsenic, lead and copper had^ 
been the cause of the death of trees, grass and even of 
animals eating the grass, and I am fully convinced that there 
is great danger of our adding arsenic enough in the form of 
materials used for spraying to jeopardise not only the life of 
the trees, but bring about other conditions of a most serious 
character. I have heretofore been very careful not to con- 
demn the practice of spraying, but simply to call attention 
to the dangers accompanying the practice, and particularly 
the excessive application of these poisonous preparations to 
the trees, and eventually to the soil. ^ * ^ * Up ta 
the present time zve do not knozv of any other practical and 
effective means of protecting our fruit against the codling 
moth than some form of arsenic, and so far as zve nozv see 
zve must continue to use this means. This, hozvever, does not 
mean that zve cannot improve the practice in several zvays. 
* * * * ^ ^^,7/ greater improvement zvould be to obtain 
some substance zvhich zvould furnish our fruit the desired 
protection, but zvhich zvould be entirely free from the serious 
objections zvhich apply to the use of any arsenical prepara- 
tion. This is not an impossibility. =«=*** Xhe 
assumption that the arsenical preparations used for spraying 
are insoluble in zvater is not justified, and yet this is a condi- 
tion zvhich they must fulfill in order that they may be safely 
used. Further, conditions may, and in some cases certainly 
do, exist in the soil zvhich makes them more soluble than they 




Photo No. 17. Show'iiii; the etfccts Of arsenical poisoning on polato leaves from Paris ureen. No 
potato i)lant can produce a full crop of tubers when sutferine from injury of this kind. 



80 

arc in pure zvatcr. I Jiavc met z^'itJi many men to whom it 
7vas a matter of some surprise that the arsenic might accumu- 
late in the soil, though they knezv that the amount of soluble 
arsenic in the soil might increase with the years." 

"The Number of Trees Affected."- — Under this caption, 
in Bulletin 131, I stated that it ivould be difficult to obtain 
data on ivhich to base ei'cn a rough estimate of the number 
of trees suffering from this trouble. I have visited many 
orchards since Tzvrote the above statement, and am nozv con- 
vinced that it is difficult to find a fifteen-year-old orchard in 
\^he state zvholly free from this difficulty. * * * * / 
am convinced that the number of trees already seriously af- 
fected by this trouble are not numbered by hundreds, but 
rather by tens of thousands. '■'• '•'• * * 

IVe have been using arsenical sprays in the various parts 
of our country for various purposes about W years. We 
have been spraying our apple orchards about 28 years, and 
in Colorado zve have been spraying 18 or 20 years. The 
question is zvhat has been the effect of this in regard to the 
amount of arsenic in the soil. The anszver is given above, 
i. e., that even in Colorado zve have increased the arsenic 
content of our orchard soils at least tenfold, and in the 
older states it must be even zvorse if they have been nearly 
as zealous in spraying as zve have been. 

But fezv people consider the real character of the sprays 
used, and zve cannot expect tlie ordinary orchardist to con- 
sider the possible results, and there has been an abuse of the 
practice. The practice in this sense has been a dangerous one. 

"Trees That Have Not Been Sprayed." — / introduce 
this subject for the simple, reason that through this claiiu 
for certain trees I found some very instructive and interest- 
ing cases. It is a very common thing for persons to state that 
"those trees have never been sprayed." I have been deceived 
by this statement so often that I nozv pay no attention to it 
at all. J have examined too many trees that "have never been 
sprayed," and found arsenic, copper and lead present, zvhich 
I consider as establishing a strong presumption that the tree 
has been sprayed. In this instance, hozvever, I knozv the 
ozvner personally, and he zvas so positive, and his statement 
zvas corroborated by at least one other member of the family, 
that zvhen I sazv the trees, zvhich I thought zvere surely not 
sprayed, I did not knozv zvhat to think. I at once sazv that I 
had to examine at least tzvo of the trees, for if these trees 
had not been injured by arsenic, then I had at last found an 



81 

instance of apple trees zvitJi corroded crowns and all the 
other conditions zcliich I had been attributing to the irritant 
action of arsoiic zvhich were not due to this cause. I took 
samples of the corroded roots of two trees, and found 
iirsenic without any trouble. I knezv that my friends had not 
iried to deceive me, and was certain that an explanation zvas 
to be had. I suggested to them that potatoes might have been 
groivn betzveen these trees and had been sprayed zvith Paris 
{jreen or possibly lead arsenite. This proved to be the case, 
and zvhile the trees liad not been sprayed as apple trees, they 
had been sprayed with the potatoes. 

At this time it is impossible to learn whether these trees 
had ever had the poison applied directly to the body of the 
tree or not. A feiv points, however, are established: That 
the crozois of these trees rvere girdled, the roots zvere cor- 
roded, arsenic was present in the zvoody tissues of the trees. 
The trees have since died. They zvere never directly sprayed 
as apple trees, but potatoes zvere grozvn betzveen these trees, 
and zvere sprayed zvith Paris green in the earlier years of the 
vrcliard, and later zvith disparine, a trade name for arsenate 
of lead." 

I have examined a number of samples of apples and 
pears from Colorado and other states, namely, from Cali- 
fornia, Michigan. Nezv York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illi- 
nois, and found them all to contain arsenic. Some of these 
samples zvere bought in market, but for others I am indebted 
to the officers of the respective Experiment Stations, and it 
is a pleasure to acknozvledge my obligations to them. I may 
state in this connection that the above fact is not the only one 
indicating that other states zvhere spraying has been dili- 
gently practiced are suffering as zve are, but not to the same 
extent. 

The author has quoted largely from these bulletins of 
Prof. William P. Headden, for the results shown tally 
with the author's own experience as to the danger of the 
use of arsenical poisons. 1 believe there is as much dan- 
ger today in Maine from the use of Bordeaux mixture as 
there is from the arsenical poisons in poisoning the soil. 
In many parts of the state there are potato growers who 
tise from 25 to 40 or more pounds of copper sulphate per 
acre each year in spraying with Bordeaux mixture. That 
this amount of copper sulphate can be used without danger 
to the vitality of the tubers grown when used year after 
year I do not believe. Five years ago I had a barrel con- 



82 




Dr. G. M. TWITCHELL. Auburn, Maine. 
One of the foremost thinkers along agricultural lines in tlie country today. 
For thirty years devoted entirely to study of and experiments in agriculture. 
Never with a thought of personal gain but that he might in some way serve 
his brother farmers and aid in promoting the one industry most vital to the 
enduring life of the natfon. 



83 

taining about fifteen gallons of copper sulphate water, one 
pound to the gallon left at my last spraying in September. 
This stood at one side of the potato field on the sod 
ground. This was an old turf composed mostly of red 
top and June grass, and was very thick. The barrel con- 
taining the fifteen gallons of copper sulphate was upset 
by some one, spreading over a place several feet across. 
The grass and turf was entirely killed out as far as the 
water reached, and there has been neither grass nor weeds 
of any kind grown on this spot in the five years since. 

That tlie result o£ using Uordcaux mixture where a 
potato rotation of once in three years is practiced, espe- 
cially the amount used by many, can fail to be anything 
but harmful to crop production in the near future goes 
without saying. 

It is through the leaves that the potato plant is enabled 
to store starch in its tubers and make quality. Dr. G. M. 
Twitchell, of Auburn, Maine, who is one of the foremost 
Institute speakers Maine ever produced, has set this out far 
better than I, a plain farmer, can do. 

Dr. Twitchell Clearly Explains this in the 

Following Article 

\Mth natural increase in interest in potato growing, 
there follows the necessity for a like increase in attention to 
the subject of spraying, for the reason that is the only path 
by which we can insure a healthy, normal or satisfactory 
crop. Being in business for a livelihood, it behooves every 
farmer to consider what may be the conditions ten, twenty or 
thirty years hence. Population will have doubled by that 
time, but not cultivated area, hence you must prepare for in- 
crease of crop per acre. Going still further, we lind that, in 
the studv of food by the public, the time is at hand when 
the value of any food product will be determined, not by the 
mere fact that "it is a food product. l)ut by the actual food 
value enclosed within its skin or shell. The potato grower 
must be preparing for the day, not far distant, when price 
realized will be fixed by food content in the product, when 
his potatoes must carry a higher per cent, of starch, that be- 
ing the element which insures quality. To get this, more at- 
tention must be given to protection of the leaves, as well as 
soil, from any and every agent which might detract from 
the perfection of the tuber. No man has yet learned the 



84 

secret of maximum production. A great undiscovered coun- 
try opens before the aspiring grower, but to enter he must 
know that his soil is free from harmful minerals, and his 
vines protected throughout the season from all insect pests 
and fungus diseases and certainly froin the possible injury 
to leaf and stalk by the use of arsenical sprays. Infinitesimal 
damage to leaf structure, damage revealed only by the mag- 
nifying glass, will reduce the starch content in the potato, 
as well as yield per acre. The relation spray solutions hold 
to financial net returns to the grower are not realized. It is 
a sad mistake to figure upon the basis of first cost. Final 
yield and food value alone can determine. Arsenic kills, 
therefore use arsenic, is the sum total of the advice given by 
those set to aid the farmer. If there was no other agent, or 
combination of agents, which will protect, without injury, the 
danger from pest and disease might justify this cry. So far 
as known, no attempts have been made by the scientific 
workers to find any other effective, yet absolutely safe agent, 
for the farmer to rely upon. It has been fully demonstrated 
that it is practically impossible to use Paris green without 
doing injury, yet, in view of this fact, this agent is today 
being urged as most efifective and economical. 

Arsenate of lead is far preferable, less injurious, and 
protects for a longer period, but both have value only from 
the arsenic they contain, and this is an indestructible 
mineral, finding its way into the soil, never to be removed, 
and increasing with every year's use. Some day this must be 
reckoned with by the potato grower and orchardist, hence, it 
becomes vital that we rely upon agents free from all possible 
danger to crop or soil, and promotive of growth and quality. 
For eight years I have used nothing but Bug Death on pota- 
toes, garden crops, also on all fruits, and also for pests on 
apple trees and fruit. When some machine is perfected, so 
that as thorough work can be accomplished in dust-spraying 
apple trees as are now available for potatoes, and all small 
fruit and vegetables, I am forced to believe that protection 
will be complete and the delicious apple can be offered the 
purchaser absolutely free from all taint of arsenic. 

Economic conditions, growing more exacting every 
year, force a constantly increasing study of this problem of 
quantity and quality, and, if it results in more complete mas- 
tery of the subject of pieparation, care and fertilization, it 
must also lead to as critical study of the safest, surest means 
of protecting growth and leaf development that greatest 



85 

value may inhere in the finished pro(hict. Here is where 
the net profit of the future grower is to be found and the 
business estabhshcd. The day is near when guarantee of 
starch content will open wide the door to a market the value 
of which cannot be estimated. It is showing itself in the 
demand already active for graded potatoes, packed in 
bushel boxes, every potato wrapped in paper. The step is 
short from here to that of guaranteed quality based upon 
per cent, of starch. 

To obtain this it behooves the grower to give close at- 
tention to the insecticide he uses and think of cost only as 
related to quantity and value of the perfected product. 

GEO. M. TWITCIIELT.. 

PARIS GREEN 

Paris green is today the most universally used of either 
for killing the potato-eating insects. It is a copper com- 
pound of arsenic and a deadly poison, and should never be 
kept where children or stock can reach it. Its action on 
foliage is harmful ; many farmers who have applied to po- 
tato fields a little too strong solution of Paris green have 
killed them entirely. Others have noted when a weaker 
solution was used that their fields turned a lighter green, 
losing their thrifty appearance and becoming a ready prey 
for blights. Many farmers claim that it is the cause of the 
late blight or rot ; this is true only in the sense that its use 
so weakens the plant that the power to resist this disease is 
lowered. Its depressing eft'ects on the vines are greater if 
the leaves have been more or less eaten by insects ; this is 
specially true of the work of the flea beetle, wliich it does 
not kill to any appreciable extent. 

The reader will get a better idea of the injury done the 
potato plant by Paris green by referring to Figure 17, show- 
ing injury due to arsenical poisoning. 

Some authorities claim that this is wholly due to the 
free or water soluble arsenic which the green contains, and 
that the addition of lime will prevent all injury. To a cer- 
tain extent, this is true, and the user should always use more 
or less lime in any mixture containing Paris green which he 
sprays upon his potato vines. That this injury can be wholly 
overcome by the addition of lime has not been the experi- 
ence of one of the greatest potato experts I have ever known. 
Neither has it been true in mv own case. That its use on 



86 

potato fields will, in time, impregnate the soil to the extent 
that it will impair the growth of vegetation seems plausible, 
in view of the recent developments in the orchards of Colo- 
rado. It must be remembered, however, that the amount 
used per acre of orchard was several times the amount usu- 
ally used on a field of potatoes ; and in the case of potatoes, 
where a rotation is followed, bringing them on the same field 
only once in three or four years, it would take a much longer 
period of time for the soil to arrive to that stage now found 
in some of the poisoned orchards of the West. 

In the one point of killing the Colorado potato beetle 
there is nothing much cheaper than Paris green, and the 
potato grower using it in a spray mixture should add a 
pound or two of lime to every pound of Paris green. If 




Photo No. IS 

Showing- the tliamond slot 4 -row duster applying- Bug- Death to a 25- 
acre field of potatoes on the Johnson Seed Potato Co.'s farms, Richmond, 
Maine, season of 1912. Note the fine condition of the vines. This field 
was never sprayed with Bordeaux Mixtur.^ and kept green many weeks 
longer than fields nearby, which were thoroughly sprayed with Bordeaux. 



87 

Bordeaux mixture is used, the lime in the Bordeaux will be 
sut^cient, the Paris green being added to the Bordeaux at 
the rate of one pound to each acre of potatoes to be sprayed. 
Paris green has no fungicide value, and its addition to the 
mixture is simply to combine an insecticide with the Bor- 
deaux. Used in this way, it will adhere better to the vines 
than if used alone. Those who use it in a dry form will get 
the least injury to the potato vines by mixing it with land 
plaster (gymsum) at the rate of one pound of Paris green 
to fifty of plaster, dusting over the plants with any of the 
dusting apparatus that will do the work. 

That it is not more generally used in this way is because 
of the fact that most of the machines on the market have 
not been a success in distributing it as it should l)e. 

For one who desires to use Paris green, mixed with 
land plaster, will find the Diamond Slot two and four row^ 
duster (photos Nos. 18 and 19) equadly bls effective for 
putting on this mixture as for applying dry Bug Death. 

The plaster has a beneficial efi:'ect on many soils. Paris 
green varies greatly in its killing strength, also in the water 
soluble arsenic it may contain, but this variation is not so 
w'ide as to cause the great difference in the killing of the 
potato bugs wdiich so many farmers complain of. One 
pound per acre ought to entirely kill the bugs, if evenly ap- 
plied, but I have seen many potato growers who had to apply 
from three to four pounds per acre at an application, and 
even the second and third application of this amount would 
not clear the vines of bugs. 

I am inclined to the theory that under certain weather 
conditions it makes the vines distasteful to the bugs, and 
they pass through a period of time when they do not eat 
enough to kill them, while the vines growing new leaves soon 
give them a new feeding ground free of the poison. I have 
noted this same failure both with arsenate of lead and Bug 
Death practically as often as I have with Paris green ; and 
as all three are eft'ective in killing these ])ests when eaten by 
them, I can account for their seeming failure in no other 
manner. 

The heavy amount spoken of above, however, should 
never be used, as the injury to the vines is too great, and 
may result in the entire loss of the crop. 

The potato grower using Paris green should use as lit- 
tle as possible of it, and get as even an application as possi- 
ble over the entire plant. With the Paris green and plaster 



89 

mixture, the evenness of the ajiphcation is apparent at a 
glance, and a niininnnn amount of the green can he used. 

ARSENATE OF LEAD 

Arsenate of lead was the result of the demand for some 
poison as effective as Paris green, hut without its injurious 
effects on foliage. It was used largely hy the old Gypsy 
Moth Commission in Massachusetts for the spraying of 
trees infested with this pest. It has two advantages over 
Paris green, in that it will adhere much hetter to the leaves 
during rainy weather and that the injury done the vines- is 
not so apparent. In my experiments with it, the loss in yield 
of tubers by its use was not over one-half that caused by 
Paris green. 

One objection to it is that it is slow in its action in kill- 
ing the bugs. I have seen fields after the third spraying 
with it literally swarming with larvae of the potato beetle. 

It is more costly than Paris green and is equally danger- 
ous to stock, and, as more pounds of it are used per acre, is 
open to the same objections as a soil poisoner as is Paris 
green. However, if I were obliged to go back to the arsenic- 
al poisons as a means of killing the potato-eating insects, I 
should use arsenate of lead in preference to Paris green, 
making several sprayings within few days' time, when the 
slugs were hatching out. In this way insects could be gotten 
rid of. with a minimum of injury to the plants by arsenical 
poisoning. As it has to be applied in the form of a spray, 
it is not so available for those not equipped with some spray- 
ing apparatus as is Paris green or Bug Death, either of 
which can be applied in a dry form. 

BUG DEATH 

Bug Death is entirely different from either of the pre- 
viously discussed insecticides. It contains no arsenic, 
and while it will kill many kinds of insects, including the 
potato beetle in all its stages of growth, it is entirely harm- 
less to stock or human beings. There is absolutely no dan- 
ger of stock getting poisoned with it; no more than there is 
with road dust lime or ashes. But its chief value lies in the 
fact that it affords the potato grower, the market gardener, 
the fruit raiser and all growers of flowers a safe means of 
fighting a greater part of the insect pests, without the least 



90 

danger of injuring the foliage. There are hundreds of 
thousands of country people who need and have been look- 
ing for years for something along this line, which can be 
easily and quickly applied without any danger of injuring 
tender plants. 

The author has been using Bug Death on his potatoes 
and garden truck for fourteen or fifteen years, using some 
seasons over a ton of it, practically all of which he applied 
himself, either with a horse-power sprayer or dusting it on 
dry. From this long experience, I feel seife in speaking 
very positively of the value of this material to any one 
needing an insecticide. In the growing of seedling pota- 
toes, which have a very tender foliage, which is certain to 
be injured by the application of arsenical poison, and 
which are most certain to be injured by Bordeaux Mixture 
itself, I have been able to keep them in much better con- 
dition by the simple method of dusting them lightly with 
dry Death Bug five or six times during the season. This 
in spite of the fact that some of our scientific men in the 
State Ex. Stations ridicule the idea of Bug Death being a 
fungicide. As far as first cost, it is not as cheap as either 
Paris green or arsenate of lead, as much more of it has to 
be used. The retail price is $7.50 per hundred pounds, and 
100 pounds is none too much to use on an acre of potatoes 
during the season, and in many sections will give as good 
results as is possible to get with Bordeaux Mixture, no mat- 
ter how well made and thoroughly applied. 

Bug Death can be applied in water through a sprayer, 
but I have never been able to get as good results in that 
manner of applying as I have in dry form. It is a decided 
improvement to Bordeaux mixture where one needs an in- 
secticide with the Bordeaux. Used in this way, 15 to 20 
pounds per acre at each application for three or four appli- 
cations will give almost perfect protection both for the flea 
beetle, that scourge of the potato growers, and the Colorado 
beetle also. Fifteen to twenty pounds of Bug Death, added 
to enough Bordeaux Mixture to thoroughly cover an acre, 
makes a thick, heavy mixture, which will not wash ofif the 
vines when once dried on. In fact, after trying all kinds of 
insecticides, I unhesitatingly claim that Bug Death and Bor- 
deaux Mixture gives the greatest protection, both for insects 
and blight on the potato, of anything yet produced as a spray 
mixture. 

In spite of this, all things considered, I prefer to dust 



91 

the Bug Death on dry, especially the early part of the sea- 
son. There are several reasons for this; first, there is sure 
to be more or less injury to the potato vines from the 
Bordeaux Mixture itself, varying in the time of showing 
according to weather conditions, but usually showing here 
in Maine in about six weeks from the time of the first 
application. 

By dry dusting with Bug Death early in the season to 
keep the vines free of all insects, those who live along the 
Atlantic coast and near ponds and streams, where foggy 
weather is apt to make blight conditions very bad, can delay 
the use of Bordeaux Mixture usually into August, and thus 
to a large extent escape the injurious effects of the Bordeaux 
But sections with these conditions form but a small part of 
the potato-growing area of the country, and in most cases 
the use of the dry Bug Death will give all the protection 
needed, both for insects and blights. 

The matter of getting water is a serious one to many, 
and costs a lot of hard work to any one spraying. Again, 
when spraying, work should not be begun in the morning, 
when the vines are heavily laden with dew, but with the 
dry dustings many acres can be gotten over with the dry 
duster before it would be best to start the sprayer. Photo 
No. 18 shows the Diamond Slot four-row horse duster. 
As it is but a few seconds' work to fill this machine with 
the dry powder, four or five acres an hour can be easily 
gone over, thereby allowing the large grower to get over 
a large field long before the dew would be dried off enough 
to start a sprayer. 

Photo No. 19 shows the hand or two-row duster. This 
machine will apply dry powder like Death Bug very evenly 
over the vines, and two acres an hour can be easily gone 
over with it, doing fine work. This photo was taken Sep- 
tember 5th, 1912, and shows the author and a part of one of 
his potato fields. This field has been gone over twice with 
the two-rowed machine, applying a total of 80 pounds Bug 
Death per acre in the two applications. 

The photo showing the Diamond Slot duster applying 
Bug Death on a 25-acre field of the Johnson Seed Potato 
Co., Richmond, ]\Iaine, was taken August 30th, 1912. This 
field had nothing but dry Bug Death a])plied for either in- 
sects or blight, and was on September 1st, 1912, the finest 
field of growing potatoes of its size I have ever seen, and I 
have seen some of the finest fields grown in Aroostook 



92 

County, Maine, where soil and climatic conditions combine 
to make of a potato field a thing of beauty. 

To sum up, those wishing to use something besides the 
deadly arsenical poisons will find Bug Death will free the 
vines of both the Colorado and flea beetle, and give practi- 
cally the same protection against blights as Bordeaux Mix- 
ture. In addition, it will be found to be a positive benefit to 
the plants, which will be shown in the darker green of the 
foliage, and an increased yield per acre, varying from ten to 
sixty bushels. 

Photo No. 20 shows the plant where Bug Death is 
manufactured. I want the reader to note photograph No. 4. 
showing an experimental plot of one-seventh of an acre on 
an old, run-out piece of land, planted without any commer- 
cial fertilizer or barn dressing, but which was heavily dusted 
three times during its growing period with dry Bug Death, 
a 100-pound keg being used, or at the rate of 700 pounds per 
acre. This amount was used not because it was necessary to 
kill or keep off insects, but to see the effect this heavy 
amount would have on the plants themselves. 



FACTORY IS .i60 FEKT I.N LENGTH A.M) HAS A YEARLY CAPACITY OF 

3000 TONS OR MORE OF BUG DEATH. 




II 1 Ifillll 



Photo TSo, 20 

Showing the Danforth Chemical Go's plant, Leominster, Mass., manufac- 
turers of Bug- Death, the only Insecticide made which does not contain 
arsenic. 



93 

There was absolutely no question but the large growth 
and perfect condition of these vines was due, to a great 
extent, to the heavy application of the Bug Death. I have 
noted the same effect times without number on many garden 
vegetables, especially melons, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes 
and eggplant. Many times the benchcial effects are so great 
as to be far bevond the small amount of nitrogen Bug Death 
contains could have. 

There is a process in the economy of plant life, not 
yet investigated by the Ex. Stations, whereby a combi- 
nation of materials different than those used in the 
composition of the arsenical preparations which will in 
certain stages of atmospheric conditions allow the leaves 
of plants to which it is applied to draw, in some-at-pres- 
ent unaccountable manner, plant food either from the 
air or soil. 

In no other way can 1 account for the vigor of growth 
which so many times follows an application of Bug Death 
to growing plants. The writer has strongly urged the Ex. 
Stations in many states to take up this work, as it is of vital 
importance to the whole agriculture of the country ; but, so 
far as my knowledge goes, I have yet to hear of the first in- 
stance where any eft'ort has been made along this line,but the 
sole eft'ort on the part of the Ex. Stations has been to push 
the sale of arsenical poisons, regardless of the eft'ect on both 
plants and soil. If the farmers of the country want the Ex. 
Stations to work for their interest along this particular line, 
they will have to exert a stronger influence over them than 
has been the case in the past. 

BORDEAUX MIXTURE 

The general spraying- mixture used on i)()tatoes as 
a prevention of blights is Bordeaux mixture. It has been 
condemned by so many potato growers who have used 
it that there can be but little dotrbt but what it is not all 
the early advocates of its use claimed for it. Probably it 
has been more generally used by the potato growlers of 
the State of Maine than those of any other section of the 
country. That there is a stronger feeling in the state today 
that it is not all that has been claimed for it would hardly be 
denied by any one familiar with the existing conditions. 
Potatoes rotted badh- in Aroostook Count v in 1907, de- 



94 

spite the fact that spraying was general. In 1908, the 
season being dry and unfavorable to the spread of the 
spores of the disease, very little rot was found in the 
county. The crowning year for rot coming the next, or 
1909, when those best able to judge claim that one-third 
of the crop rotted, many farmers losing nearly their 
whole crop, and resulting in a loss to the county, esti- 
tnated by some to be around five millions of bushels. Some 
claim that the best-sprayed fields rotted the w^orst, while 
others claim, with equal vehemence, that spraying saved 
their crop, one probably being as near right as the other. 
Too many farmers have reported that their sprayed 
fields have rotted badly, while those not sprayed rotted 
but little, if at all, to waive them aside without consider- 
ation. That there are reasons back of all of this not yet 
understood there can be no doubt. 

From my experience, I am inclined to believe that 
the vitality of the seed planted many times determines 
whether or not the crop can be saved by spraying with 
Bordeaux mixture. In writing this I have aimed to keep 
my own experience in the background, putting down as 
far as possible only known facts. But one experience of 
my own along this line might be of interest to the reader. 
I planted one five-acre field several years ago with seed 
which I knew to be lacking in vitality. This field was as 
thoroughly sprayed as it is possible to do the work. 
Eighty gallons of Bordeaux mixture was used per acre 
at the first application, tw^o hundred gallons each at the 
second and third spraying and one hundred and thirty- 
three in the fourth, the last application being September 
7th. Late blight or rot spread on this field after the sec- 
ond spraying, many leaves being afifected all over the 
field. The third spraying seemed to check the spread 
for a time, owing partly to cooler weather. The fourth 
application had little efifect in checking its spread, it being 
about as bad in one portion of the field as any other. The 
vines were thoroughly covered wdth the Bordeaux, yet 
the blight spread, and there was quite a per cent, of rot- 
ten tubers. Had there been a few days of as hot weather 
as we usually get in late September, there is but little 
doubt but nearly all the tubers would have rotted. If 
Bordeaux mixture gave no better protection to fields in 
general than it did to this one, it would be of but very 
little use to the potato grower. On the other hand, I am 



95 

satisfied that had this field I^een planted with strong, 
vigorous seed that the spraying given it would have en- 
tirely pre\enle(l the hliglu and r<'i. 

There is a question whether the action of the Bor- 
deaux mixture itself is not weakening the vitality of our 
potatoes, despite the protection it usually gives against 
blights. I have yet to examine a field in September that 
has been kept thoroughly sprayed during July and Au- 
grust that does not show leaf injury caused by the Bor- 
deaux. This shows in a burning and browning and harden- 
ing of the leaves, and in some fields is a very pronouced in- 
jury. The later in the season the vines remain green 
the more this burning of the copper sulphate shows. 
Yet, when well made and intelligently ap])lied, it will in- 
crease the crop of tubers in most any kind of a season, 
especially in the more Northern states. The making of 
Bordeaux mixture has a great deal to do with its effi- 
ciency in protecting the vines, and no doubt there are many 
using it who do not mix it in such a way as to get the best 
results. The old formula of six pounds of blue vitriol and 
four pounds of lime to forty-five or fifty gallons of water 
is seldom, if ever, used now by the potato growers in 
Maine. This did not carry enough lime, and the injury 
spoken of above caused the use of more lime and less vitriol. 
The five-five fifty formula is used by many, while five 
pounds blue vitriol and six pounds of lime and fifty gallons 
of water probably is an even better one. The ready 
mixed Bordeaux mixture or ready mixed dry Bordeaux 
has not seemed to give as good results as the home-made. 

The new process lime manufactured for the making 
of Bordeaux does all right, but more of it should be used 
than of common lump lime. Seven to eight pounds of this 
should be used to five pounds of blue vitriol to get the 
same effect as six pounds of common lump lime well and 
properly slacked. As the new process lime costs more 
per pound, and more of it is needed to the same effect, it 
is more costly to use. For the small, and many times to 
even the large grower, the easiness with which it can 
be mixed up will save enough time to more than make up 
for the added cost. It is a good plan for any potato 
grower who plans to spray his crop to have a supply 
of this new process lime on hand. Many plans of making 
and mixing .Bordeaux mixture have been given to the 
public, showing how the diluted lime water is contained 



96 

in one barrel and the diluted blue vitriol water in another, 
both being run into the spray tank through pipes or hose, 
where they mix together as they enter the tank. These 
are all right as far as they go, where water is handy and 
can be pumped up to a height which will allow this to be 
done. This is seldom the case in actual field work with 
the average grower. Probably ninety per cent, of the 
water used to make Bordeaux mixture has to be drawn 
to a greater or less distance to get it to the potato field. 
If the distance to get it there is more than a few rods, 
the quickest and most economical way is to haul it in 
large barrels on a farm wagon rather than in the sprayer 
itself. In this case it is much better to slack the lime and 
dissolve the blue vitriol in that section of the field where 
the greatest saving of time can be made when spraying. 
Stock mixture should always be made even for a few 
acres, and as both the lime and vitriol will keep indefi- 
nitely until mixed together, much time can be saved by 
so doing. 

The following stock solution will make five hundred 
gallons of Bordeaux: Get two large barrels, holding fifty 
^a.llons each, dissolving in c^ne of these fifty pounds of 
blue vitriol. There are two ways of doing this. One is to 
put the vitriol in a coarse sack and hang it into the barrel 
near the top., so that the vitriol will be only partly covered 
by the water. This is the usual way, but is not so satis- 
factory as the following : Get or make a box about twelve 
inches square and ten to twelve inches deep, tacking on 
the bottom of it a piece of brass or copper wire netting 
after removing the bottom. Nail two cleats along oppo- 
site sides near the top, so that the box can be set into the 
barrel resting on the cleats. This will bring the box down 
into the barrel some eight or ten inches, according to its 
depth. Pour the fifty pounds of blue vitriol which is to 
be dissolved into the box, and fill the barrel with water 
by pouring it through the vitriol. More than one-half 
of the vitriol will be dissolved in just filling the barrel, 
and as the bottom of the box is down in the water, the 
balance of the vitriol left in it is in the best possible posi- 
tion to dissolve quickly, and in an hour or two all will be 
found ready for use. If the box is made with copper 
nails and the netting tacked on the bottom with copper 
tacks, the box will last for years, and will save many 
hours of time as well as wastinsr of blue vitriol. We now 



97 

have fifty pounds of vitriol dissolved in fifty gallons of 
water, or one pound of vitriol to each gallon of water. In 
the other barrel Ave will slack sixty pounds of good lump 
lime. Pour two or three pails of water in the barrel first, 
then turn in the sixty pounds of lime. A eood stirring 
paddle should be at hand, for the lime will begin to boil 
in a very few minutes. Care should be taken that this 
does not spatter into one's eyes. More water will have 
to be added, always keeping enough in so the lime will 
slack without burning. Ten to fifteen minutes will slack 
this to the consistency of a thick paste. If this can be 
done the night before wanted, it is better letting it set 
iintil morning before filling the barrel up with water, as 
it will slack better to be kept hot for a few hours. When 
needed, fill the barrel with water. This gives us sixty 
pounds of lime in fifty gallons of water. 

When ready to spray, first fill the sprayer at least 
half full of clear water, then add five gallons of the blue 
A'itriol water. If insecticides are to be used, they should 
be added at this time. Next, add five gallons of the lime 
water, give the pump a turn or two to start the agitator 
and stir the mixture, and if the sprayer is not quite full, 
fill it by adding clear water. This will make as good 
Bordeaux mixture as one can get, and at the lowest price. 

As the operator uses the lime water out of the lime 
barrel, he can add more water, always keeping in mind 
to use all the lime the barrel contains in using the fifty 
g-allons of blue vitriol. The object in adding more water 
to the lime is to so dilute it that it will readily pass 
through the strainer in the sprayer tank. This also does 
away with trying to strain out the coarse material, which 
we always find in our lime which settles in the bottom of 
the barrel. Thoroughly sprayed with a Bordeaux mix- 
ture made in this manner five or six times during the 
season by going over and back on the rows at each spray- 
ing, potatoes will seldom be badly hurt by blight and rot. 
AVhen this does occur, the chances are that there are 
other and obscure causes that are back of it, like poor, 
weak seed, which should never be planted. 

SPRAYERS 

A sprayer should be thoroughly well built, with large 
pump capacity and a strong agitator working close to the 
bottom of the barrel or tank, keeping the mixture in perfect 



98 

suspension. Most machines are now made to spray four 
rows at a time, and on rough, uneven land this is as many 
as it is advisable to try to cover at once. On large, smooth 
fields, free from stones of any great size, six rows can be 
covered at a time, provided the pump has a capacity enough 
to keep the working pressure up to where it should be. A 
working pressure of at least 7h to 90 pounds is needed when 
the machine is working in the field with the spray turned on, 
whether spraying four or six rows at a time. 

A sprayer that will not develop and maintain this de- 
gree of pressure day after day either is out of order or is 
lacking in pump capacity. The pump should be made entire- 
ly of brass and copper, and the plunger should be so made 
that the wear of both plunger and cylinder can be taken up 
by putting on the plunger leather or canvas cups. These 
will make the pumping capacity of the machine as good as 
new. Two or three days of continuous work will so wear 
these cups that the pressure will begin to fall, and many 
times before the operator realizes it, he will be doing in- 
ferior work, and another set of cups will need to be put on. 

A sprayer needs a good deal of attention to keep it in 
first-class working condition. Many have fitted up for 
spraying their potato fields, and then for inferior work done 
have not received the returns they looked for, and therefore 
condemned the process. This is almost always either the 
fault of the operator, who fails to understand the proper 
working of the machine and keeping it in perfect working 
order, or of the machine itself. 

Bordeaux Mixture is hard on the life of any sprayer, 
on account of the lime used in its making, and in the hurry 
of the work many fail to properly strain the mixtvire as it 
goes into the sprayer tank. This results in clogged nozzles, 
impatience on the part of the operator and unsprayed por- 
tions of the field, allowing both insects and blights to get a 
start. I have not yet found any nozzle equal to the vermorel 
for the potato field. 

The pump should be fitted with two leads of pipe, a 
return pipe to the tank and the one leading to the nozzles, 
both being fitted with a stopcock. When starting for the 
potato field, after filling the tank, start the pump and open 
the stopcock leading back to the tank. This allows the agi- 
tator to thoroughly stir the mixture while the pump is pump- 
ing it back into the tank. When the potato field is reached, 
shut ofif the stopcock leading back to the tank, allow the 



99 

pump a few strokes to get up as much pressure as wanted 
and then turn on the stopcock leacHng to the nozzles. An 
allowance should he made of a few feet in entering the rows, 
in order that the nozzles may all get working in good shape 
hy the time they get over the tirst hills when entering the 
rows. A little practice on the i)art of the operator in turn- 
ing the spray on or oft" will enable him to spray the end hills 
when entering and leaving the rows as well as any part of 
the field. 

A first-class power sprayer will be fitted with a waste 
gauge leading back into the tank, and so arranged that by a 
turn with a thumb nut the amount of pressure can be easily 
changed. This waste gauge should be set at all times so that 
it will give up and relieve the pressure on the pump before 
breakage occurs on any part of the machine. It also should 
be fitted with a pressure gauge, allowing the operator to see 
at all times the amount of pressure his pump is under. A 
good strainer should go with every machine, fitted with 
brass or copper wire screen of thirty meshes to the inch. 
This is fine enough, so that if nothing passes into the spray 
tank but what goes through this size mesh there will be no 
trouble in clogging of the nozzles. Some sprayers are fitted 
with a strainer containing a screen of too small surface, 
which is easily clogged up when filling the tank, especially 
wdien straining in the lime. 

The aperture in the spray tank should be large enough 
to take a strainer containing at least twenty-five to thirty 
square inches of wire screen. This will allow surface 
enough, so that with a reasonable amount of care on the part 
of the operator there will be but little, if any, trouble in 
rapidly filling the tank. All of these things are of impor- 
tance to the grower. Many times, with a small screen sur- 
face strainer, it will take longer to fill the tank with the mix- 
ture than it does to apply it to the potato field. This is a 
useless waste of valuable time at a season wdien every mo- 
ment is precious, and causes a slighting of the work which 
would not otherwise happen. With a good four-rowed horse 
sprayer, kept in condition, as perfect work can be done on 
large areas as is possible for the small grower to do with a 
knapsack sprayer. Photo No. 15 shows a four-rowed horse- 
power sprayer at work. 

SPRAYING 

The importance of spraying potatoes as a preventive of 



100 

blight is overlooked in many sections. This is especially 
true in the case of late blight or rot. There is hardly a sea- 
son, even when there is no late blight, that the extra yield 
from sprayed fields will not more than pay all cost of spray- 
ing. This being the fact, spraying becomes a system of crop 
insurance which the careful grower feels that he cannot 
afford to neglect. 

Spraying, to be effective, must be carefully and thor- 
oughly done. In ill-planted fields, with crooked rows and 
rows of varying distances apart, no perfect work can be 
done. The spray should be forced all through the vines, 
coating the under as well as the upper side of the leaves and 
stalks. Spraying is a preventive, not a curative necessity. 
For this reason, it should be begun before the blights are 
established on the plants, and this holds true for the larvae 
of the potato beetle as well. To do this work effectively 
demands much of a sprayer. The nozzles should not be set 
to point straight down, but a little forward or backward. 
The larvae of the potato beetle likes to get into the crown of 
the plants, feeding on the tender new leaves growing there. 
To be effective, our spray must be forced into the crown of 
the plant, while, at the same time, we want angle enough 
so that it will be forced among the stalks and under the 
leaves, coating both leaves, stems and stalks with the mix- 
ture. We should have pressure enough to have our spray 
come out of the nozzle just like a jet of steam. The nozzles 
should be as near the rows as they can be and get spread 
enough to the spray to cover the whole of the row. Many 
make a sad mistake here in not adjusting the nozzles to the 
size of the plants they have to spray, and really cover only 
a narrow strip through the center of the row. Others have 
their nozzles too high, and, while they cover the rows entire- 
ly, the spray has no force to it when it reaches the plants, and 
consequently it is not forced among the stalks. In this way 
the stems, stalks and under side of the leaves get but little 
benefit from the spraying, although to the careless observer 
the work looks to be perfectly done. 

There can be no real, thorough spraying in going one 
way over the field. Some advocate, where the pumps are 
powerful enough to furnish plenty of pressure, the putting 
on of double nozzles, one pointing forward and the other 
backward, will give the same result in one driving over the 
field. While this is all right in theory, it doesn't work out as 
well in field practice, partly because it applies too much mix- 



101 

ture at once, without giving it any chance to dry on ; and, 
again, the operator, unless he has had long practice, is almost 
sure to fail to have the pressure up at times when he enters 
the rows. This leaves the ends of the rows unsprayed, even 
with double nozzles, as double nozzles cannot spray with no 
pressure behind them. With the sprayer in good working 
condition, the operacor, if returning on these rows, even 
with single nozzles, is certain to have plenty, of pressure as 
he leaves them. In this way, the ends of the rows which he 
failed to spray on entering will at least get a more thorough 
spraying than if he had gone only one way, even with double 
nozzles. To go both ways with double nozzles takes too 
much mixture per acre and makes spraying too costly. The 
best results are obtained with the minimum amount of mix- 
ture by using single nozzles. Going over the field and let- 
ting the tirst application dry on, and then reversing, reaches 
both sides of the hills, and the small crown leaves, where the 
tiny slugs have congregated, have got two sprayings at dif- 
ferent angles, which is practically certain to cover them and 
kill all the slugs. 

Spraying should begin when the vines are from six to 
eight inches high. Fine caps should be used on the nozzles 
at this first application, as it saves material, and a sprayer 
holding sixty gallons can then be made to cover an acre, go- 
ing both ways. If insects are plenty, the second application 
should follow the first in a very few days. It is sometimes 
better to make the first three sprayings inside of ten days' 
time, if the weather is very warm and slugs are hatching" 
rapidly. These should be killed before any damage is done 
the vines. At this period of rapid growth the foliage is in- 
creasing so fast that plenty of unsprayed surface can be 
found in the crown of the plants by the little slugs as they 
hatch out. For this reason, three sprayings are sometimes 
needed to entirely rid a field from slugs. If this work is 
done as it should be, there will be but few bugs left to bring 
out a crop of slugs later in the season, and in the subsequent 
sprayings an insecticide may and probabily will not be 
needed. 

A field allowed to become badly eaten by either the flea 
or Colorado beetle is much more likely to be attacked by 
either the early or late blight than one kept free from them. 
This is also true of arsenical poisoning, which is much more 
likely to injure the plants if badly eaten by insects, especially 
the flea beetle. The free arsenic, acting on the raw, freshly 



102 

eaten edges left by these insects, seems to be much more 
harmful to them than it is to uneaten foliage. After the 
first three sprayings, the others can follow along at intervals 
of ten days to two weeks, according to weather conditions. 
Dry, cool weather is unfavorable to blight, and the period 
between the sprayings can be longer, while moist, hot weath- 
er, being favorable to the spread of the late blight or rot, 
would necessitate a shortening of the time between spray- 
ings. There comes a time in the period of the growth of the 
potato when it seems to be the most susceptible to disease, 
especially the late blight; this is just when it is passing out 
of the blossom stage of its growth. If we can get it through 
this critical period without harm, it is a comparatively easy 
matter to keep the vines green until late in the season in the 
more Northern sections until killed by frost. This means a 
greatly increased crop, as the last few weeks the vines re- 
main green is when the potato makes the most profit to the 
grower. 

For this reason, it is advisable when the potatoes are 
passing out of the blossoming stage to use more gallons 
of mixture per acre than at any other time. On vines that 
thoroughly cover the ground not less than one hundred 
and twenty-five gallons per acre should be used at this 
time, and I frequently use more. Spraying should never 
be stopped because the vines cover the ground and will be 
broken and more or less trampled upon when driving 
through them. Vines that have got to this stage of 
growth will not be cut off badly by the wheels of the 
sprayer going over them. The rolling of them down by 
the wheels, while it looks bad, will hardly even bruise 
them except on side hills where the sprayer slides more or 
less down hill. When this happens a few will be cut ofif, 
but the damage done is infinitesimal compared with the 
good done in preventing blights and promoting growth of 
tubers. No one should hesitate to spray, even if the vines 
are so rank and tall that the rows can hardly be made out; 
a growth of vine of that magnitude certainly needs the pro- 
tection given by a thorough spraying. 

THE FLEA BEETLE 

There is no insect that does greater damage to po- 
tato vines at times than the little black flea beetle. I 
had much rather have the Colorado beetle to fight than 




I'buto >'<». 21! 



This shows the injurious effect of the flea beetle. The injury of 
this insect is one of the most destructive the potato grower'has 
to contend with. Bujj Death is tlie most successful insecticide 
to combat this ravaging and destructive insect. 



104 

this little pest. In fact, he does far greater damage be- 
fore attention is attracted to his work than any other 
insect I know of. In my section of Maine there is an 
early brood, which usually comes the last half of June 
in great numbers. Frequently potato fields will show 
practically all their leaves eaten, as shown in Photo No. 
22 by the time the plants are five or six inches high. 

Fully one-half of the surface of the leaves have been 
destroyed as far as their use to the plants is concerned 
before the grower realizes what is being done. This could 
not happen with the Colorado beetle without being seen 
long before one-half of this damage could have taken place. 

Potato vines eaten in this manner are much more 
susceptible to arsenical poisoning and the early and late 
blight and other fungous diseases. There is sometimes 
an August brood in Elaine, and in some cases these are 
so plentiful that even a vigorous field of vines, which 
completely cover the ground, will be ruined by them in 
a very few days. Not only do they eat the leaves full of 
little holes, but eat in many places part way through, 
thus making little depressions. It is the settling of the 
Paris green into these little depressions, partly eaten 
through the leaves that causes the target-like marking 
shown in Fig. 17 of injuring due to Paris green or ar- 
senical poisoning, and makes arsenical poisoning so much 
more pronounced on a field that is badly infested with 
the flea beetle. Its ravages also have a decided eiTect in 
causing- the early blight; so much so that it seems reason- 
ably certain to claim that the early blight would seldom, 
if ever, cause much loss to the grower unless the plants 
suffered a loss of vigor through the ravages of this pest 
and arsenical poisoning. 

Again arsenical poisons do not kill this pest to any 
great extent, or, at least, do not seem to lessen their rav- 
ages. Hence Paris green should not be used when the 
vines are afflicted with the flea beetle unless it becomes 
necessary to use it to kill the Colorado beetle, as the Paris 
green, settling in the little holes, partly eaten through 
the leaves, helps along the injury to the vines and makes 
a bad matter worse. Bordeaux mixture, thoroughly ap- 
plied, will keep them partly in check by driving them away. 

There is no way I have ever found to protect my 
fields from the flea beetle like dusting them with dry 
Bug B'eath when the plants are damp either with dew or 



105 

ri^lit after a rain. 

1 ha\e nc\er been able to deterniine whether or not 
it was fatal to them or simply drove them away, but it 
makes but little difference to the potato grower, pro- 
\ided his fields are kept free from them, which the Hug 
Death will do far better than an_\thing else I have ever 
used. 

THE COLORADO BEETLE 

The Colorado beetle is probably the best known of 
all the potato-eating insects. It seems to have been a 
native of Colorado, hence its name. When the settlers 
carried the potato into its home it seemed at once to form 
a particular liking for the foliage of this plant, and at 
once began to spread East in search of its new-found 
food. It reached Iowa in 1861, and Wisconsin in 1862, 
Illinois in 1864, Michigan and Indiana in 1867, Ohio in 
1868 and Pennsylvania in 187U. Twelve years later it 
reached Nova Scotia, and has been a pest over the whole 
eastern portion of the country ever since. That it will 
ever disappear hardly seems probable, although it varies 
in number greatly in dift'erent sections at different times. 
It flies readily in bright, hot weather, but the distance it 
can cover in this manner does not seems to be known. 
From my observation, I believe it never flies in damp, 
cool weather, and the approach of evening or a sudden 
shower will precipitate it to the ground, regardless of 
where it may be. It can frecpiently be found washed up 
on the shores of lakes and ponds, sometimes in countless 
numbers, a sudden cooling of the atmosphere causing 
them to fall into the water in their flight across where 
they have miserably perished. 

They winter b}^ burying into the soil, coming out 
with the first real hot days of spring, and sometimes ap- 
pear in such numbers on a potato field, where the plants 
are just breaking ground, that all growth made for sev- 
eral days, or even weeks, are eaten by them. It is at this 
stage of the growth of the plants that they are the hard- 
est to combat, as there is so little leaf surface that it is 
practically useless to try to poison them. They mate at 
once, and egg laying commences within a few^ days if the 
weather remains warm, the little potato plants frequently 
having several hundred eggs on them wdien two or three 
inches high. If these plants can be covered up with 



106 

soil, it will spoil these first egg clusters, and in the case 
of verv late planted potatoes many times will be all that 
is needed to free a field from them. The work of fighting 
them should never be delayed until damage is done the 
plants, as it will result in a loss of crop that will 
amount to many times the cost of the labor and material 
needed to rid the field of them. What to use in this work 
is described under Insecticides. 



TREATMENT FOR SCAB 

Scab is a fungus disease (Oospora scabies), growing 
on the surface of the tubers, causing rough pitted patches, or 




Photo No. 23 

Showing scab. 



107 

in badly infested soils these patciics cover the whole surface 
of the tubers, oftentimes making the whole crop unfit for 
market. (See Photo No. 23.) Some varieties of potatoes 
are much more susceptible to scab than others. 

The American Giant is noted for its scab-resisting 
qualities, but its cooking quality is such that in most mar- 
kets, if bought at all, it brings a much lower price. As a 
general rule, the better the quality of the variety tiic more 
likely it is to be attacked by the scab fungus. This is not 
always true, however. 

This disease is widespread and is carried to soils which 
are free from it by planting infected tubers. One of the 
methods of controlling scab is to plant seed free from it. 
A\'ith a system of crop rotation which will bring potatoes on 
a field only once in three or four years, little or no trouble 
will be experienced from its attacks. The scab fungus will 
not thrive in an acid soil, and although it may be present 
or even scabby potatoes planted in such a soil, the resulting 
crop would be free enough from it to sell readily in the 
market. We can lime a soil and sw^eeten it up to that point 
where clover will thrive, and still not have it sweet enough 
to prevent growing potatoes on it by reason of scab, if we 
will be sure to have the seed we plant free of the disease so 
as not to plant the scab along with the potatoes. 

If it becomes necessary to plant any seed showing 
spots or patches, as shown in the cut, it should be disin- 
fected. One of the methods to do this is to soak the tubers 
before cutting in a solution of formaldehyde. This is com- 
monly called the formalin solution. It is not a very costly 
or time-taking job if gone about in a businesslike way. There 
are several methods of doing this, but the following will 
suit the farmer who plants up to 100 or 150 bushels of seed : 

Get five large barrels holding from fifty to sixty gallons 
each and set them in a row out of doors, putting into each 
of them 35 gallons of water; add to this one pint of for- 
malin of the standard 40 per cent, solution to each barrel. 
Put the potatoes into coarse bags (bran sacks are best for 
this purpose), tieing them near the top. This allows the 
potatoes to spread out in the bag, and by so doing three 
bags, holding one bushel each, can be gotten into each barrel, 
and the 35 gallons of the solution will completely cover the 
potatoes. The five barrels make it possible to have 15 
bushels of potatoes soaking at a time. This is about all one 
man can attend to at once. Let these soak from one and 



108 

one-half to two hours. While this is going on, more can 
be sacked up and got ready to put into the barrels, as soon 
as the first lot is removed. In this way one man will pick up 
out of a bin and soak about 100 bushels in a day's time. The 
cost of the formalin should not be over a dollar and a quarter 
for the five barrels, and each barrel should soak at least 40 
bushels of seed. When the potatoes are removed from the 
solution it is better to turn them upon the ground, one 
bushel in a place, and throw a bucket of clear water over 
them to rinse the solution off, as it makes them nicer to 
handle when cutting. When dried they can be picked up and 
put in bins again until needed for planting. 

All bags, boxes or baskets used to handle the potatoes 
after being soaked should be previously dipped in the for- 
malin solution to kill any of the scab fungus which might be 
on them; and if they are to be put back into a bin, a bucket 
of the solution and an old broom w'ill allow the operator to 
thoroughly disinfect the bin before putting the potatoes 
back into it. When a soil becomes badly infested with scab 
it is a serious matter, and if the disease is to be eradicated 
it can be more quickly done if potatoes are kept off of it for 
some years and green crops grown and plowed under to set 
up a slight acidity, which will help to kill it out. Lime, 
ashes or heavy application of barn manure tends to sweeten 
the soil and promote its growth. 

Sulphur has been used by many to dust over tliC seed 
when cut, and also scattered along the row when planting. 
With some this seems to be a perfect remedy, while with 
others it seems to amount to very little. That the condition 
of the soil itself has much to do with its effectiveness 5s no 
doubt true. Some authorities claim that spreading seed 
potatoes to sprout where the direct rays of the sun will 
strike them will kill the scab fungus. 

When the scab fungus is in the soil, any treatment given 
the seed will not insure a clean crop, but only makes certain 
that we are not planting the disease along with our seed. 
Many times it may be present in a limited way in a soil 
favorable to its growth and not get to affect the tubers 
enough to hurt their market value from one season's plant- 
ing unless the scab in good, vigorous condition is planted 
on the seed. 

Land that is reasonably free from it will usually grow 
good market crops of tubers if a rotation is followed which 



109 

will bring potatoes on the groiuid not oftener than once in 
every three or four years. This is most sure to be tlie case 
if stable manure is not used on the held ; but the humus- 
content kept up by plowing under green crops or a clover 
sod, and chemicals or commercial fertilizer used to supply 
the plant food needed by the potato crop. 

One having scab on his seed potatos should read the 
chapter on "Selecting and Cutting Seed." If this is fol- 
lowed thoroughly and the knife disinfected as stated, the 
grower will have but very little trouble either with scab or 
many other diseases which now make potato raising on some 
soils a risk. 

LATE BLIGHT OR ROT 

The late blight or rot probably causes more loss to 
the Northern potato grower than any other disease which 
attacks the plant. As far as known, it lives through the 
winter only in the tuber itself, and many times it can be 
easily detected when cutting potatoes to plant, although 
it might be present in many of the potatoes cut and not 
detected even by an expert. It may affect only a small 
portion of the tuber, and, in cutting, the portion affected 
might not be cut through and, therefore, would not show 
even to the most expert observer. 

If, when cutting seed, the cut surface show's black- 
like threads running through the tuber, it should be dis- 
carded, as this is more than likely to be the late blight, or 
rot, in the dormant state in which it passes the winter. 
It also can sometimes be detected by sunken spots on the 
surface of the tubers. These are usually irregular in 
shape and vary from mere spots in size to covering nearly 
the w'hole surface of the potato. These usually appear 
during the winter while in storage, and in some cases 
quite a percentage of a bin of potatoes will be found 
showing these spots in spring, when at digging time no 
trace of rot was found on the tubers in the whole field. 
When infected seed is planted and the soil and w^eather 
conditions become favorable to the growth of this fungus, 
it spreads to the surface by the roots and stalks. I have 
frequently found the wdiole root system and stalk below 
the surface of the ground badly affected when the thor- 
oughly sprayed top show^ed no blight whatever, and a 
slight pull w-ould break the stalk off just below the sur- 
face of the soil. 

This is one reason wdiy early spraying for the late 



no 

blight or rot is necessary, as it may be working towards 
the surface on the roots and underground stems when 
infected seed has been planted, and even the most critical 
observer could not detect it in the field unless an infected 
hill should happen to be dug out. If any seed piece 
planted was badly infected, the sprout or stalk springing 
from it is likely to come up weak and spindling. On the 
other hand, many seed pieces may be so slightly infected 
that the vigor of the sprout will apparently be but little 
impaired, and the field make a splendid growth and ap- 
pearance. 

If at about the time the plants are going out of blos- 
som and sometimes before, if the weather becomes hot 
with frequent rains, the spores of the blight reach the 
surface, and if the vines are unprotected, they spread very 
rapidly over the leaves, and in a few days' time will turn 
a fine looking field into a mass of blackened, dying vines, 
with a very offensive odor. 

If no rain falls from the time the vines become infected 
with the spores until they are entirely dead, and the 
unripe tubers in the ground have ripened off or hardened 
up, there is little danger of it. Tubers after they are 
thoroughly ripe seldom rot in the soil unless it becomes 
very wet. Again, a field that shows but little blight on 
the vines, perhaps none to the average grower, and keeps 
green until frost may have its tubers rot badly. This 
comes from the spores of the blight being washed from 
the leaves down upon the unripe potatoes, which they 
immediately attack. 

A field can have its vines so slightly affected by the 
blight spores that the casual observer would not detect 
it, and still there be enough to wash down upon the unripe 
tubers and cause a bad case of rot in case of heavy rains. 

A field can also become infected with blight by the 
spores being brought to it by the wind from a field per- 
haps miles away. In this case, it is usually detected on 
the leaves near the top of the plants. A leaf showing a 
portion turned black and drooping, with a white mold 
on the under side, can safely be diagnosed as affected 
with the late blight. If good, vigorous seed has been 
planted and the vines kept thoroughly sprayed with Bor- 
deaux mixture, or thoroughly dusted with Dry Bug 
Death, see photos Nos. 18 and 24, beginning when they are 
only six to eight inches high, there is but little danger of 



112 

the grower losing his crop from the late blight or rot. If 
blight is once allowed to get well started on a field, there 
is but little hope of saving the crop. 

The above-mentioned photographs show a part of a 
25-acre field of potatoes on the Johnson Seed Potato Com- 
pany farms at Richmond, Me., in 1912, which had noth- 
mg m the way of insecticides or fungicides applied to it but 
Dry Bug Death, and were in the best of condition on 
September 1st of any field in that section. The vines 
remained green until late in October, the last photo show- 
ing the digging of the World's Wonder October 22nd, 
1912, the yield being practically 430 l)ushels per acre. 

HARVESTING THE CROP 

Potato harvest at best is hard work both for teams 
and man. The old hard work of hand digging is largely 
done away with by the modern potato digger, which will 
do fine work if cultivation has been thoroughly and prop- 
erly done unless heavy and frequent rains keep the ground 
in muddy condition. This may and frequently does hap- 
pen, and where the crop is on a clay loam soil no potato 
digger made will do good work or, in fact, do any work at 
all in mud. When these conditions do overtake the grower 
there is nothing left but hand digging with the potato or 
tined hoe. 

The elevator diggers are most used and most practical 
and there are several makes on the market. As in showing 
the various other machines used in the fitting of the soil 
and the growing of the potato, I call the reader's attention 
to the photo No. 24 of the O. K. Champion Potato Digger 
No. 2 at work on the Johnson Seed Potato Co. farms at 
Richmond, Maine, taken October 22nd, 1912. This digger 
is manufactured by the Champion Potato Machinery Co. 
of Hammond, Ind. 

This machine is of light draught and is easily drawn 
by one pair of good horses, and if cultivation has been 
done as it should be one man and a pair of horses will 
dig an acre easily in from two to two and a half hours, 
leaving the tubers all or nearly all on top of the ground 
ready for the pickers. 

The form of the rows has much to do with any ma- 
chine doing good work. Tlie practice of the Maine 
grower, almost witliout exception, is to ridge his rows, but 
not too high or wide. This forms an ideal chance for any 



113 

digger to do its best work. If the rows are ridged too wide 
and liigli, no machine can handle the soil and separate thi: 
tubers out without a draught nnich too heavy for one pair 
of horses. This is especially true if the ground is in any 
way too wet. Thus, if le\el cultivation, or wide and high 
ridged rows confront the grower a large four-horse digger 
might have to be used, as it has a much larger separating 
capacity. 

Such a machine, when the ground is in proper condi- 
tion and the rows have been ridged about right, is not 
nearly as desirable for many reasons. First, the draught 
is much too heavy for one pair of horses, and a four-horse 
team, outside of the extra expense for the extra horses, 
will trample upon and cause more or less loss of tubers. 
Again, with fine conditions for digging, the soil will leave 
the machine too quickly, leaving the tubers to pass over 
the elevator ^vith no protection from bruising unless the 
machine is run at a much greater depth than is necessary 
or desired. 

A digger which requires four horses is unnecessary in 
most cases if proper attention has been given to ridging as 
it should be done. 

With most late varieties which grow a large top which 
usually entirely covers the ground the rows should be not 
less than 34 to 36 inches apart. In ridging, planted this 
distance apart, it won't do to take the soil from centre to 
centre, as a too large ridge will be thrown up to work 
properly through any digger which can be drawn by two 
Inorses when the ground is wet. 

Therefore tlie Maine growers' practice is to make a 
medium sized ridge as shown in Photo No. 14. This will 
Avork nicely through a smaller or two-horse digger and 
leave the tubers as clean and nice to pick up as can a larger 
machine wdiich costs much more to operate. That a very 
large ridge may, in some seasons at least, be the means of 
producing a little larger crop of tubers I am inclined to 
believe. That this increase in yield will be enough to ofifset 
the extra cost of digging has not been my experience. Dif- 
ferent sections of the country have ditierent methods of 
handling the crop after being dug. The Aroostook county 
method is to pick into barrels, drawing these from the fields 
on low w^agons or jiggers. This is a type of wagon little 
seen in most other sections of the country, but it makes 
a rapid, easy way to get the crop to the storehouse. Other 



114 




Photo No. 25 

Showing- the Aroostook type of storehouse. This depends on artificial 
heat passing- up bet-ween the outer and inner -walls. 

sections use bushel boxes or sacks, which can be much 
more easily loaded on the high wagons used in many of 
the potato-growing districts, but for those sections where 
the crop is to be stored for winter or spring shipment there 
is no cheaper or easier method than having the pickers 
dump the tubers into barrels set at proper distances along 
the rows and drawing the filled barrels to the storehouse 
with the low wagon. 



STOREHOUSES 

Storehouses for the keeping of potatoes are a neces- 
sity where the crop is largely grown and not all sold from 
the field as dug. It is pretty safe to assume that new 



115 

seed would not have to be broui^ht from the North every 
yeai in many sections where it is now done were the 
growers fitted with proper storehouses. Once in two 
years would be as often as new seed would have to be 
obtained throughout Pennsylvania and as far South as 
the Southern border of this state west through Ohio, In- 
diana and Illinois. 

There are two ways to build a frostproof potato 
storehouse. The one most generally used in Aroostook 
County, Me., see photo No. 25, is to have a chance in the cel- 
lar or basement for a stove with double walls to the building, 
with the outer air space opening into the cellar or basement. 
Thus a very little heat will keep this air space above the 
freezing point, and with another air space between this and 
the potatoes, where the air is dead, potatoes can be kept free 
of frost with but little cost for heat, no matter how low the 
temperature may go outside. 

Aroostook County, Me., gets a temperature from 30 
to 50 degrees below zero every winter, but there is seldom 
any loss of tubers in the storehouses there by reason of 
frost. Such a house needs constant attention in cold 
weather, and is not the best form for the grower farther 
South. Some writers claim that a dry, cool cellar is bet- 
ter than a damp one for the keeping of potatoes. This is 
not so. The cellar should be cool almost to the freezing 
point, but there is less loss in weight if it is damp. For the 
grower as far South as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and 
Illinois, a house with a cellar under ground is, in my 
opinion, far better. Such a house is shown in photo No. 
26. The upper part of this building is used for the storing 
of farm implements, fertilizer, sacks, etc. 

The cellar walls should be either of stone or concrete, 
and the ceiling over the cellar should be plastered with 
concrete in order to keep the moisture away from the 
timbers. Unless this is done, the timbers will not last 
over from six to ten years. \\'ith a building as shown in 
the photo, the potatoes are drawn from the fields into the 
building and dumped through scuttles into the bins below, 
care being taken not to bruise them in so doing. 

After the potatoes are in, the cellar should be cooled 
down as fast as possible until the desired point is reached. 
This can be done by keeping it closed during the day 
and opening it nights, when the temperature outside is 



116 

cooler than in the cellar. If the cellar is dug into the 
hillside, and proper precaution taken to keep water from 
coming in, there is no need of any floor, but the potatoes 
can be dumped right upon the earth bottom of the cellar. 
They will keep much better than on a wooden floor. I 
have seen many such that were cemented on the bottom. 
Unless this is necessary to keep water out, it should not 
be done, as it makes the cellar too dry for the best keep- 
ing of the tubers. 

The nearer underground such a cellar can be the 
more even the temperature, and if the cellar is kept closed 
as spring approaches, the tubers can be kept until well 
into the spring before sprouting. The darker the cellar is 
the better will the tubers keep their quality ; but some 
way must be provided for light when it is desired to re- 
move them. 

Such a cellar as the above will keep tubers without 
freezing with no artificial heat whatever. The writer's 
own cellar has now been built ten years, and I have seen 
the glass go to 25 below zero, and hang around the zero 
mark for weeks at a time without a tuber being touched 
by frost. 

Where a building is not needed over the cellar for 
storage of farm implements, a reinforced concrete roof 
can be made with scuttles to dump the potatoes through 
to get them into the bins. These can be raised as high 
as wished and the whole roof covered with soil and grass 
allowed to grow upon it. The roof should be made water 
tight by a thin coat of cement before being covered. Such 
a cellar should be dug into the side of a hill or knoll, al- 
lowing teams to drive over the cellar easily to dump into 
it, while on one side or end it should be on a level of the 
bottom of the cellar, allowing a team to be backed right 
into the cellar when the doors are opened, or, at least, al- 
lowing the potatoes to be taken out on the level. This 
saves lifting both in storing and removing from the cellar. 

By having a storehouse on the above plan, a grower 
can keep his seed stock in much better condition, and 
many times, by so doing, he can produce enough larger 
crops to pay for the whole cost of building such a cellar. 

Again, if buying Northern seed, by having a proper 
chance to store and keep it, he can purchase in the fall, 
when it is usually cheaper in price. He is then sure of 
having his seed on time in the spring, which means 



117 

much in many cases, as delays often occur in j^etting 
seed from the North in early spring'. 

MARKETING THE CROP 

The marketing is largely a matter of color, size and 
quality. A roundish white potato with a shallow eye is what 
most markets demand today. These should he well sorted 
and graded as to size. It is uniformity of size that takes 
the eye of the huyer. 

I'here always should he at least two grades, and if 
there are many large tubers of a pound or more in weight, it 
is many times advisable to make three grades. The first 
grade should be all nice, smooth tubers, practically free from 
scab, prongs or any form of roughness. The largest of 
them should not be much if any over 12 to 14 ounces and 
the smallest not below 5 ounces. This is as great a variation 
in size as ought to exist in any lot which the grower expects 
to have graded as firsts and to bring the highest price. 

All above this grade in size that are good and smooth 
will usually sell for a higher price per bushel than could 
be obtained if both of these grades were mixed together. 
There is almost always a good market for these large tubers 
if they are smooth and nice in appearance and are good 
clear through. The fear that they are hollow or black in the 
centre or core is about all the reason the buyer has against 
them ; but in their favor they have large size, which readily 
commends them to the maker of potato chips or the hotels 
or restaurants where fried potatoes are served. Large tubers 
are peeled with less labor and waste. Could nice, clean stock, 
running from 12 ounces up to two pounds, always be ob- 
tained, there would certainly be a good demand for it at 
good prices. In the third grade would be all those below 
tive ounces in weight down to those of the size of large 
hen's eggs that were good and smooth. Many prefer this 
grade for baking purposes, as they will bake quickly and the 
iiavor is equal to any. 

The average grower does not have enough of either of 
the last two grades to estal)lish and maintain a trade in them, 
and in an average neighljorhood there are so many ditTerent 
varieties grown that it would be impossible to work tnis in a 
co-operative way. Still there is no question but what pota- 
toes graded and put upon the market in this way would 
return to the growers more monev and give the consumer 



118 

better satisfaction. 

Any section where potatoes are largely grown ought 
to have a co-operative organization among the growers, 
not only for marketing their crop, but in the purchase of 
seed. This orgsmization should have a building ample for 
its needs with facilities for loading cars right at its doors. 
The growers should draw in their potatoes and have a 
corps of experienced men to sort and grade them. The 
cost of this would be a little more perhaps than the grad- 
ing in the field; but the extra price would much more 
than offset this extra cost, as no field-sorted stock is ever 
perfectly graded. By this method the men doing the 
grading having no interest in one man's lot above that of 
another would grade uniformly, something absolutely 
needed to build up a reputation and get prices above the 
general market. 

By having such an organization the varieties planted 
can be Hmited to those best suited to the locaHty in point of 
quahty, yield and market demands. Any section which can 
establish and maintain a reputation for choice, well-graded 
stock not only obtains the highest price at all times, but has 
a demand for its product even when there is a glut in the 
market. This point alone is many times of the greatest 
value to the grower, enabling him to dig and dispose of his 
crop at good prices even in an overstocked market. 

The prices obtained by the Long Island, N. Y., potato 
growers above the general market prices well illustrate 
this point, as they frequently get from fifty cents to a dol- 
lar more per barrel than the general run of potatoes are 
selling for. There is hardly a section where potatoes are 
grown, where a right system of intelligent and broad-minded 
co-operation in selecting a few varieties best suited to that 
particular locality and having the product grown, properly 
sorted and graded, in which the returns could not be in- 
creased at least 10 to 15 per cent. 

THE HOME GARDEN 

A chapter on "The Home Garden" seems out of place 
in a work on the culture of the potato. Yet nearly every 
grower of potatoes is directly interested in a "Home Gar- 
den," from which his table can be supplied with the 
choicest of fruit and vegetables. The high cost of living 
is something that every one must face, and there is no 



119 

spot 111)011 a farm where more can be got for the time 
and labor expended tlian a properly laid out Home or 
Kitchen Garden. 1 believe tlie ne.glect so often noticed 
on many farms of any pretense along this line is, to a 
large extent, due to the inability of most farmers to fight 
the garden insects in a quick, economical manner. 

Nothing has been tendered them but arsenical pois- 
ons by most agricultural writers and Ex. Stations, and it 
w^as pretty nearly an even chance for the grower whether 
to let the insects kill his garden truck or for him himself 
to kill both truck and insects by an application of some of 
these poisons, usually Paris green. 

This was particularly true of scpiash, cucumber and 
melons, to say nothing of eggplant and many other vege- 
tables of the garden. Hence I shall confine myself almost 
wholly to those plants and vegetables whose growing is 
the most hazardous by reason of insects. 

One of the most delicious of the products of the gar- 
den are Melons, both Water and Musk. These need light, 
warm soil, and in the more northern states at least the 
spot selected should slope to the South or Southeast, as a 
greater degree of heat will be obtained, and heat and sun 
are essential to their growth. The land should be finely 
cut up with the harrow before plowing, and a heavy ap- 
plication of barn dressing be applied and plowed in, but 
not very deep. The writer uses a high-grade potato fer- 
tilizer, with a part of its nitrogen in the form of nitrate 
of soda, running at the rate of one-half ton per acre into 
the rows with the potato planter, the disk coverers cover- 
ing this, and with the leveling attachment following, the 
rows are smoothed dow^n level and all done at one going 
over with the planter, the row^s being six feet apart for 
watermelons and a little less for muskmelons. This 
might not be room enough in the south, but is plenty for 
Maine conditions. The great trouble with watermelons 
in the North is to get the seed to come up cpiickly. The 
seed is usually so dry and hard that in our Northern 
States there is not heat and moisture enough to germinate 
the seed properly, and a poor stand of plants is usually 
the result. After many trials with dift'erent methods. I 
have used the hot-water idea for the last five years with 
not a single failure. Watermelon seed are so hard that 
soaking them for a day or two in tepid water is not 
enough. Again, there seems to be more or less germs of 



120 




Photo Xo. 26 

Showing the frost-proof cellar type of potato storehouse. This type is 
far better for the more soiTthern sections, as potatoes can be kept much 
later in the season without sprouting'. 



different diseases that live through the winter on the 
seeds ready to attack the plants as soon as they begin to 
sprout. Five years ago it occurred to me to use hot 
water at first when I put the seeds to soak. This can be 
almost scalding hot when poured over the seeds, but the 
seeds should not be allowed to stand in scalding water 
but a very few seconds, just long enough to kill any 
germs that might be upon them, but not long enough to 
injure the vitality of the seeds themselves. This is no 
job for the heedless or careless man; but in my experi- 
ence of only five years, when I have used the hottest water, 
I have got the best results. After this scalding process 
the seeds should be put into real warm water and allowed 
to soak for from two to four days, the water being grad- 



122 

ually brought down to about the temperature of the air 
and soil conditions out of doors. In planting, I follow 
the rows as left by the potato planter, and with a round 
pole from one to one and one-half inches in diameter laid 
upon the row and with the foot pressed into the loose 
soil. This makes a depression about one inch deep, with 
the soil packed in the bottom. This will insure moisture 
along the bottom of this little row where the seeds are 
to lay, and seeds that have been soaked must not be 
planted in dry soil where there is no moisture. A little 
care and these pole furrows can be got very straight. 
I plant Watermelon Seeds not over 4 inches apart along 
these rows, and cover not over one inch deep. I have 
never failed in this manner from having a perfect stand 
of plants, except once on one variety, wdiere the seed was 
bad. This leaves our melon rows only an inch or so wide 
when the plants first break the ground, and the cultivator 
can be worked so closely to them that the cost of this 
part of the work is very small. 

When the plants get well started, thinning should 
begin. There is always danger from cut worms, which 
is the reason the seed is sown so thick along the row, for, 
with any method of fighting the cut worm, he is most 
sure to get a good many plants before the worms can 
be all killed. After all danger of insects is by the plants 
should not l)e left nearer than three feet apart in the rows. 

The most active enemies to melon plants both water 
and musk are the flea beetle and striped squash bug, both 
of which can be entirely controlled by the frequent appli- 
cation of dry Bug Death. The same duster as is shown in 
photo No. 18 can be used only now, but one row at a 
time can be dusted, the rows being so far apart. By nar- 
rowing up the width of the dust the machine will drop 
there will be but very little waste, and it is only a few 
minutes' work to cover an acre of melon plants in this 
manner. 

They should be dusted earl}- in the morning or late 
at night Avhen damp with dew. There is another pest 
sometimes called the wilt beetle, which causes the plants 
to wilt and die, and which may not attack them until the 
vines have made quite a growth. There will be but lit- 
tle trouble with this pest if the vines are kept dusted, as 
they should be, with the Bug Death, as long as the ma- 
chine can be used without too much damage to the vines 



123 

by the wheel running- over them, and by the time this 
will happen the vines will be largely out of danger. 

One of the surest watermelons to grow in the North- 
ern states is the Coles Early. It is a good eating melon, 
but too tender for shipi)ing ; but that is no drawback for 
the "Home Garden." The "llalbert Heney" is the sweet- 
est and finest llavored melon of them all, and, while 
small, will grow most years as far North as central Maine 
if on light, warm soil and in a sheltered place. 

The Keckley Sweet is another fine melon, much 
larger than the Halbert Heney and nearly as good fla- 
vored. I have grown specimens of the Coles Early to 
weigh 32 pounds and Keckley Sweet 25 pounds here in 
Maine, which is larger than needed for home use. 

In the case of muskmelons, where the seeds are thin, 
and in some cases have split open more or less, it will not 
do to use the water as hot, as it will upon the harder 
shelled dry watermelon seed. The two objects in using 
hot or nearly scalding water on watermelon seeds is, 
first, to soften up the hard shell of the seeds so that 
they can sprout quickly, and, second, to kill the germs 
of any disease that might be upon them. With musk- 
melons the last is the only reason, as there is but little 
trouble in getting a stand of plants if the seed planted 
is good, and with thin-shelled seed hke muskmelons care 
must be used in order not to kill the germ of the seed 
when scalding to kill the germs of any of the melon 
blights which may be upon them. 

Cut worms and the flea beetle like muskmelons much 
better than watermelons ; hence, when planting musk- 
melons, the seed should not be dropped over one and one- 
half to two inches apart in the rows. This seems like a 
great waste of seed, as these should be thinned out to not 
less than 30 inches apart in the row after all danger from 
insects is past. The cost of seed is not very great, and 
with both water and muskmelons the time of planting 
is very short in our Northern states, and if the first plant- 
ing fails to give the proper amount of plants needed the 
whole season will have been lost. There can be no set 
time for planting either, as the ground must be warm 
before it is any use to plant melons. As a rule, Mav 25th 
comes as near as any date can be specified, but I have 
planted a week earlier with fine results, and with the Gran- 
ite State Muskmelon as late as June 15th, and got fine 



124 

ripe melons weighing- four and five pounds by September 
8th, but the Granite State melon is the only one I have ever 
had that will do this. In fact, I have never planted any 
of the other varieties after the first week in June and re- 
ceived any crop. 

The Granite State is the most sure of any of the 
muskmelons, and if planted side by side with the "Miller 
Cream" for a few years will take on the good quailty of 
the "Miller Cream," while still keeping its old shape and 
size. Next to the Granite State would come the "Miller 
Cream." This is the finest eating melon I have ever 
tasted when grown to perfection. It should be planted 
never been able to have it grow properly planted later 
as early as the ground and weather will permit, as I have 
than June 1st. The Granite State will make a good crop 
in any season I have ever seen here in Southern Maine, 
but it is the only one that will. The "Miller Cream" will 
in about four years out of five, and so will some of the 
"Netted Gens" or "Rocky Fords." It is but little use to 
plant anything but the "Granite State" and "Miller 
Cream" as far North as Maine, but these two are all one 
needs or desires. 

SQUASHES 

In planting squashes, the same general system of 
preparing the soil is followed as in planting melons. 

What barn or stable dressing that can be spared is 
spread over the patch, and either harrowed or plowed 
in, and some commercial fertilizer used in the drill the 
same as for melons. In fact, I find this to be about the 
best method for most garden crops, as much time is saved 
and all vegetables will get a quick start. The squash 
rows are run six feet apart, and the seed is pushed into 
the soil about 1^ inches with the fingers and about two 
feet apart in the row. There is not as much danger from 
cutworms with squashes as with melons, but if they are 
known to be present the seed should be planted thicker. 
Four feet apart in the row is about right to leave the 
squash plants. The flea beetle does not attack the little 
squash plants as they do muskmelons, but the striped 
squash bug will be a great deal worse. 

If the little plants are dusted two or three times with 
Bug Death none of them will be lost. I do not think I 



125 

ever lost a squash plant when kept dusted with Bug 
Death, and if dusted with it before the bugs come they 
will not light upon the plant at all. Hence it is very im- 
portant to dust them as soon as the plants break ground. 
With plants as scattered as they are in a squash patch, 
the best way is to take a piece of cheesecloth or burlap 
and make a small bag, putting a pound or so of the Bug 
Death in it, and with a little jerk or shake over the plant 
it will be well dusted. This should be done early in the 
morning or at night when the plants are wet with dew. 
With this method I have gotten nearly three tons of fine 
squash from one-eighth of an acre of ground, and it is 
rare that the yield will be less than six tons per acre. 

Squashes should never be planted near melons, as 
they are apt to spoil the flavor of the melons. 

CUCUMBERS 

Cucumbers are planted in the same manner as mel- 
ons, with the seed dropped as thickly in the rows, but 
only thinned to one foot apart in the row. and the rows 
can be as near together as three feet. I like the drill 
method for all garden truck, and by keeping the seeds in 
a straight line when they are small, there is but very little 
of the soil which cannot be stirred by the cultivator, 
keeping the garden free from weeds with the least possi- 
ble amount of hand labor. 

Bug Death should be dusted on the cucumbers as 
soon as they break ground, for the flea beetle will get at 
these plants nearly as quickly as muskmelons. Many 
who raise cucumbers for the pickling factories claim that 
several dustings with the Bug Death after the vines get 
to a bearing age will piolong their fruiting season from 
two to three weeks. Unfortunately, the writer has never 
grown cucumbers in a large way, but only for his home 
use, but they grow and bear fruit until killed by frost. If 
the claim of those who grow them for the pickling fac- 
tories is well founded, it is certainly worth the trial for 
this purpose, as the vines can be dusted with the same 
duster used for potatoes and with very little waste of the 
Bug Death if the rows are in drills. 

CONCLUSION 

In conclusion, allow me to thank you for your atten- 
tion and say that the methods, both in the home garden and 



126 

potato growing, which I have had the pleasure of bringing 
to your notice, have been worked out in the field by myself, 
and do assure you that if you will follow to the letter my 
instructions, the result will be a good paying crop of tubers 
in most any season, wet or dry, from Maine to Michigan. 

I have many points herein in the culture of the potato 
mostly overlooked by potato growers, thinking it of too 
little importance, and wdiich, to my mind, lead to a real loss. 

The methods of preparing the soil are correct. If the 
seed is handled as I have above outlined, there wall be 
almost a perfect stand of plants in any season ; and the 
method of fertilization keeps the plants supplied with plenty 
of available plant food well balanced the season through. 
Thus you have the whole scheme — very simple, is it not? 
Yet I venture to say that there will be thousands who read 
this book who will so improperly fit their ground and fer- 
tilize that there will be weeks at a time in a dry spell when 
their crops cannot get a tenth part of either the water or 
plant food absolutely necessary to make a normal growth. 

Feed your crops as you know you must feed your 
stock, and the increase will be accordingly. If the author 
is wrong, get after him. 

Yours truly, 

' E. A. ROGERS, 
Johnson Seed Potato Company, 

Leominster, Mass. 



INDEX 



In'roduction 

General Conditions 

Rotation . 

Soils for Potatoes . 

Underdramage 

Preparing Land for Potatoes 

How to get Humus 

Winter Vetch 

Winter Rye 

Two Main Causes of the Detoriation of the 

Potatoes for Seed . 

Varieties. 

Saving Potato Boll Seed 

Originating New Varieties 

Whole Potatoes for Seed 

Greening and Budding Seed Potatoes 

Selecting and Gutting Seed 

Planting Early Potatoes in a Garden 

Field Planting of Early Potatoes 

Planting the Late or Main Crop 

Stable Manure 

Commercial Fertilizers 

Cultivation 

Insecticides 

Paris Green 

Arsenate of Lead . 

Bug Death 

Bordeaux Mixture 

Sprayers . 

Spraying . 

The Flea Beetle . 

The Colorado Beetle 

Treatment for Scab 

Late Blight or Rot 

Harvesting the Crop 

Storehouses 

Marketing the Crop 

The Home Garden 

Conclusion 



Potato 



MAR 10 J913 



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